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Maple sugar and syrup come from two species found only in America and Canada. In late winter, gallons of sap, collected from drill holes in the trunk, reduce to maple syrup when heated on a slow flame.

This is an ancient art now adapted for the industrial age. The Iroquois Indians used the sap to cook venison and to cure game meats. During the 19th century, Northerners and abolitionists preferred maple sugar to the cane sugar produced with slave labour in the South. Maple sugar helped lessen the impact of cane sugar shortages during Word War II.The Canadians have a unique way of making maple taffy. Hot maple syrup, poured into a bucket of clean snow, yields a soft, dark toffee (“sugar on snow”) best eaten fresh. This local tradition celebrates the annual maple-tapping season.

The sugar content of sap ranges from two to seven percent. With the exception of honey, no other natural sweetener exists in such abundance in nature. Apart from glazing pancakes, the syrup also sweetens waffles, breakfast cereal, biscuits, donuts, cakes and pies.

A tablespoon of traditional maple syrup contains around 50 Calorie, with sucrose being the sugar. The “pancake syrup” with “2 % maple syrup” sold in some Indian supermarkets is not pure maple syrup.

It contains sweetening additives like high fructose corn syrup. Though their calorie count is the same, imitation syrups cannot match the delicate flavour and silken consistency of pure maple syrup. Natural maple syrup has more nutrients than honey. It is rich in minerals like potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, iron, zinc, copper and calcium. It is also much lower in sodium than honey.

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