Marathon Maple Syrup Festival

The good news is, that I got a job! The bad news is, that I haven't had as much time to cook and document my kitchen experiences. As soon as I get my act together and back into the swing of working everyday, I will get back on the blogging track.

I haven't had as much time to cook but last last weekend, on the way to visit my parents in New Jersey, I stopped at the Marathon Maple Syrup Festival. I absolutely love small town festivals and this one was no different. As soon as I got out of my car the air was filled with the sweet smell of syrup. It being a chillier day than I had anticipated I was drawn immediately to the sign advertising maple coffee and purchased a cup.

Coffee in hand, I looked around the festival grounds I stopped into the sugar shack. The sap straight from the maple tree does not taste very good at all. It must be boiled and treated and the sugar shack in Marathon is one of the places where this is done. The man supervising the operation told me that it had been a pretty terrible year for maple syrup. Due to the unseasonably warm weather earlier in the week they had been forced to stop tapping the maple trees sooner than usual. This year central New York had only produced about a third of the maple syrup that is normally made in a winter.

Leaving the sugar shack I was allowed to take a sample of the previously treated syrup. It was much lighter and way more flavorful than any pancake syrup on the market. (I will never go back to using Aunt Jemima.) There was more than just maple syrup and maple coffee at this festival. They had maple milkshakes, maple pulled pork and chicken, maple cotton candy, maple ice cream sundaes and of course pancake breakfasts going on until 4PM.




I loved learning more about where an ingredient comes from and how it is produced. All in all I had a great time trying all the food and being inspired to try my own maple syrup recipes. I'll make at least on thing using maple syrup for my next entry.

Maple candies being made from maple cream, which is made by heating maple syrup and stirring until a cream is formed. I brought home some of these tasty candies for mom and dad.