Maple syrup season is here and with it one of my fondest memories: going over to my
grandmother’s for some “sugar on snow.” She sent one of us out to get a big pan of fresh,
clean snow while she heated some maple syrup. When it began to thicken, she poured it over the snow in streaks and handed us forks to roll up the syrup, now hardened into ribbons of delicious, chewy maple candy. It was surprising to find that there are many words for this in the Northeast, some of them extinct: “wax” or “maple wax,” “larbo” in New Hampshire, “jack wax, cockany” in New York, and if you make it in sheets instead of ribbons it’s “sheepskins “or “maple leather.” The Franco-Americans called it “la tire sur la neige” (“tire”= “taffy”) and it’s still a big part of Quebec’s winter festivals. The syrup itself was known as “maple molasses” in 19th-century New England.
In the good old days, this time of year was an excuse to have a “sugaring off party,” often at
churches. It was also called simply “a sugaring off, a syrup off” or in parts of Massachusetts “a sugar eat.” Young people would look forward to these socials where they could see their
friends, play some games, and of course, flirt. It might be a full-blown potluck supper, but even if it was just the syrup, it would be served with sour pickles (to offset the sweetness of the syrup) and doughnuts (to offset the offset–and who can do any serious, up-close flirting after eating a pickle?) Sugar on snow is still a common treat wherever maple syrup is made, and some places like the Traditional Arts Center in Canton, New York, home of my alma mater, St. Lawrence University, are bringing back the festivities around it, complete with fiddlers and dancing.
We didn’t make syrup on our farm, but in his teens, my grandfather was in charge of taking the horses out on bobsleds to the “sugar bush” to collect sap from the “sugar orchards” and carry them to the “arch.” This is not what we usually think of an arch. It’s the firebox the pans of sap sit on to boil, and in the old days were made of stone and earth. If you build a shed around it, it’s the “sugar house” or, once upon a time, the “sugary.” The “sugar bush” also goes by many other names in the Northeast: the “sugar camp, sugar grove, sugar wood, sugar lot” or “maple grove,” but my favorite for its Yankee simplicity is the “sugar place.”
On the subject of “syrup,” if you want to start an argument with your friends, ask them how
they pronounce it. In most parts of the USA, the first syllable rhymes with “fur,” but there are many who use the vowel of “fear,” especially in the NYC-Washington corridor. In the South, some reduce it to one syllable: “surp,” but theirs would most likely be caro syrup from corn, or cane syrup from sugar cane.
My grandfather’s fondness for genuine maple syrup was passed on to my father and from there to the whole family. No sickly corn syrup for us. My father taught us to expand our culinary creativity and pour it directly onto a helping of baked beans — highly recommended. For years, I made syrup for myself after buying a place with big maples and it’s one of the disappointments of my elder years that I can’t have it anymore — it’s too sweet, even with pickles. I should be thankful because it’s probably the reason Grampa ended up with no teeth. I remember the shock one day when I stayed over at his house and as we got ready for bed he pulled out his “boughten” teeth and set them in a glass. Then again, I’m sure he thought losing some teeth was a small price to pay for the thousands of breakfasts spent digging into a plate of pancakes smothered with syrup.
Dale Coye is a member of the American Dialect Society. He has taught English and the humanities at several universities and worked in area theaters as a dialect coach and director. He grew up on a dairy farm in central New York and now lives in Wilton.
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