Sugaring Off…

As children growing up in the North Country, one of our favorite spring rituals was spending an afternoon “sugaring off.” We would pile into the old blue Chevrolet station wagon, with Grampa Howard in the front seat clearly in charge, for the drive to the Landaff Grange Hall.

Writing is best in the early hours, just before dawn, when there are no distractions. Writing this, I am tempted to toss my computer into a satchel, walk to the No. 6 train, travel up to Harlem and find a place that is serving a southern breakfast. It’s difficult to write about food without the scents of real cooking wafting through the air. Perhaps being there would help me to describe the texture of the raised doughnuts, the sweetness and pure maple flavor of the hot syrup and the sensation of eating a sour pickle to cut the sweetness so you can enjoy the candy resulting when hot syrup combines with snow.

As we walked into the Grange hall, there were several rows of long tables, covered with white paper, plates of green pickles and coffee cups. The activity at a sugaring off is, of course, in the kitchen. Looking through the door one could see a group of women, wrapped in pastel gingham and calico aprons, trimmed with bright primary colored rick-rack, either shaping the raised doughnuts or standing over large pots of boiling lard, ready to dip the doughnuts. Raised doughnuts are made with yeast and must rise for at least an hour before being shaped. The moment they are removed from the pot they are piled onto a plate and brought to the table. Nowhere in the world can you find doughnuts that will compare to these made in a country kitchen. The light fried outside and the moist soft airy inside is a taste one never forgets.

The men, dressed in green wool pants, sweaters, and black and red hunting shirts are coming and going with pails of sap ready to be boiled down into syrup or carrying buckets of snow.

If you have never been to a sugaring off, then you might not know about sugar on snow.Heavy “corn” snow is brought in from the deep woods, and syrup that has just been boiled down and then cooled is drizzled over it. The syrup begins to harden and you twist it onto your fork until it forms a piece of candy that is soft and sweet. If champagne is like “drinking stars,” eating maple candy is like enjoying a little piece of heaven.

At the same time, you are dipping the warm doughnuts into the hot syrup. If this sounds like too much sugar, the bowls of sour pickles are there to take away the sweet taste. The pickles are made by filling a glass gallon jar full of sliced cucumbers and adding one cup of canning salt, one cup of white sugar, one cup of dry mustard and then filling the jar with cider vinegar. The pickles should cure for about six weeks.

It’s been years since I have visited a sugar house in New Hampshire, and I called Betty Messer, who spent 50 years with her husband, Paul, operating a sugar house in Orford before they retired in 2014.

“In the forefront of sugaring is clearing of the land, leaving the maples in place, mapping out the placement of lines, replacing and mending such as needed and a place to gather the sap, or flow straight into the sugar house for evaporation,” Betty told me. Weather is, of course, critical and ideally should be 20 degrees in the evening and at least 40 degrees during the day. The lines must be clear and not frozen so the sap will flow. When there is lots of snow, the best method of transportation is snowshoes. With the unusual weather we have been having over the last few years, there are stories Betty can tell you about when the sap runs.

I asked Betty if she would send me her recipes for raised doughnuts and even baked beans made with maple syrup. The pickle recipe I have included is hers. We also talked about how to sew an apron, like the ones that were found in every kitchen in New Hampshire years ago. Her husband Paul delivered grain when he was in high school and it came in bags made with calico. The women often recycled the bags and used the fabric for their aprons. I’m certain she would share her recipes and even her apron pattern with you if you send me a note.

Grampa Howard left us the recipes that were kept hanging in the kitchen held in heavy silver clip. He had typed them using his Remington typewriter and various scraps of paper. They are now yellow with age and the clip is getting rusty. Often at the end he would type, “yum, yum, yum.” The perfect words for describing a sugaring off.

March is Maple Syrup month and if you have never been to a sugaring off there are places you can go to have the experience. Just look at the website for New Hampshire maple producers,www.nhmapleproducers.com.

Elizabeth Howard’s career intersects journalism, marketing and communications. “Ned O’Gorman: A Glance Back,” a book she edited, will be published in May 2016. She is the author of “A Day with Bonefish Joe,” a children’s book, published by David R. Godine. She lives in New York City and has a home in Laconia. You can send her a note at [email protected].