Every Day is a Food Day

Gotta Tap That: a Maple Syrup Story

December 08, 2020 Van Valin Productions & YumDay Season 1 Episode 4
Every Day is a Food Day
Gotta Tap That: a Maple Syrup Story
Show Notes Transcript

Today we’re talking about the sticky stuff: Maple Syrup. Anna dishes on one of her favorite food scandals, the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist, where over 450K gallons were stolen from Quebec’s strategic syrup reserve (which is a thing!) to be sold on the maple syrup black market (also a thing!). Plus, Vermont’s 10 pages of maple syrup laws and the time it took on the Golden Arches. Lia tells us about the amber oil’s national holidays and festivals, and how maple sugar gained popularity in 1800’s New England as a way to boycott sugar cane dependent on slaved labor. In a Food Day first, we have our first special guest! A Vermont-native tells us about their maple-obsessed culture, complete with suburban dad syrup homebrew and something called the Maple Bacon Latte.

Connect with us at @FoodDayPod on Instagram & Twitter,  join our Facebook Group,  and check out our webpage.

Explore from the show:
Watch an episode of the Netflix documentary series Dirty Money to explore the full Maple Syrup Heist story.
Watch the news footage arrests of the heist's masterminds.
Hear testimonials from maple sugar farmers in "The Dirty Side of Maple Syrup" from the New York Times.

LIA 00:02
Hi Everyone! From YumDay and Van Valin Productions, this is “Every Day is a Food Day”

LIA 00:22  
I’m your host, Lia Ballentine

ANNA 00:24
And I’m your other host, Anna Van Valin. On “Every Day is a Food Day,” we celebrate food stories, from our calendars to our kitchens. 

LIA 00:31 
We’ve got some sweet treats for you because today we’re talking about maple syrup. 

ANNA 00:35
And, we have our very first guest!

LIA 00:38  
 Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. Food stories are people stories, so we want to hear from you! Join our online community by connecting with us on Instagram and Twitter @FoodDayPod, and join our Facebook group.

ANNA 00:52
And for more info and resources, check out our show notes and visit us at yumday.co/podcast.

CLIP
01:14 
“ELF,” Four food groups

“Elf: Can you pass the maple syrup, please? 

Speaker 1: I didn’t put… It’s spaghetti. 

Elf: You know what? I think I have some. Yes. 

Speaker 1: You like sugar, huh? 

Elf: Is there sugar in syrup? 

Speaker 1: Yes. 

Elf: Then yes! We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup!”

ANNA 01:40 
 Syrup! We're talking about maple syrup. The sticky stuff. The sweet Canadian juice. The amber ale. One of the most expensive materials in the world.

LIA 01:53 
It is.

ANNA 01:53  
Maple Syrup. That's right, we started talking about maple syrup because I heard about the great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist. And so when we were like... We're telling food stories. I was like, this is on the list. 'cause it's incredible.

LIA 02:04 
I gotta know, I love a good heist story. So heist combined with food. Perfect.

ANNA 02:10 
Exactly. Plus Canadians. I love it. And...we have our very first interview! We’re gonna talk to a boots-on-the-ground maple syrup expert...and hear her roommates in the background. Look, we’re real. We are authentic here. We are just doing it. 

LIA 02:33 
Keeping it real. So much stuff we could talk about with syrup.

ANNA 02:37 
What is your favorite Maple Syrup vehicle? What is your favorite Maple Syrup delivery device?

LIA 02:42 
Okay, well, alright, I love maple syrup on pancakes, 'cause most people do. I have this weird little OCD thing though when I eat waffles, I have to fill every little square with maple syrup, and I'm really like, I'm a maple syrup person, I know there are people who like other flavored syrups, but I like to stay as pure and as classic as possible

ANNA 03:14  
You mean other flavored syrups like fake syrup, Lia. Is that... Are you trying to not throw shade at the people who are down with Ms. Butterworth?

LIA 03:24 
I'm a snob. No, I do like Mrs. Butterworths. What I don't like are things like a blueberry syrup or a raspberry syrup.

ANNA 03:35 
 I also prefer pure maple syrup. But I do like some toppings... I like a berry compote.

LIA 03:45 
Oh, I'm all about berry compote.

ANNA 03:47  
Do you wanna know a family secret? 

LIA 03:49  
Yeah. 

ANNA 03:50  
Do you know what our favorite condiment on waffles is?

LIA 03:53 
I don't know. Is it like... peanut butter?

ANNA 03:56  
Peanut Butter. Stop judging me, listeners! Peanut butter, just try it. Peanut butter with syrup will change your life.

LIA 04:07 
Okay, I'm gonna have to try that. I don't think I've ever had peanut butter on a pancake.

ANNA 04:11 
It's the sweet and the salty that goes together, like you're not gonna get the same sort of lightness that you would in normal was just butter and syrup, but... And, man, it's so good. It's just basically a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, except it's a waffle and syrup.

LIA 04:27 
That's a nice way to start the day.

ANNA 04:30  
It's a beautiful way. Nice and light. Nothing heavy.

LIA 04:36 
Eat it go back to bed and what I would do...

ANNA 04:40 
Throw some bacon in there. Have you ever put bacon in the bacon, it like the bacon grease in the batter, serve it with bacon.

LIA 04:47 
No. What...

ANNA 04:49 
Are you gonna go do that right now? The second we are done?

LIA 04:51 
Put the bacon grease in the batter?

ANNA 04:53
Yeah. It gives it, uh. It gives it a bacon tang. It gives it a salty bacon tang. I'm realizing I know a lot more about waffles than I thought I did.

LIA 05:03 
You know there is that place in LA. Dupars. It's at the Original Farmers Market, and they have fantastic pancakes and it's because they put melted butter in the pancake batter, so... it makes sense that putting the bacon fat in the batter would make it better...

ANNA 05:21 
Shout out to Dupars if you're in LA. It is so good. It's at the Grove, they probably still deliver... Have some outside dining. Definitely check out Dupars.

LIA 05:29 
You know, I did go there by myself, solo dining, and I ordered their large stack of pancakes it was pretty hilarious. There was a table of like five people sitting next to me and they saw them bring out the large stack, and those women turned around and she was like, “Those are really good as leftovers, so I suggest you freeze them.” But it kind of made me think was she thinking that I wasn't going to eat all of these. Lady, I'm here to eat this whole full stack of pancakes by myself.

ANNA 05:59 
Were you like, “I didn't make a mistake."

LIA 06:03 
Yeah, I think she thought I didn't know what I was doing. I was very deliberate with my ordering a full stack of pancakes.

ANNA 06:09 
And then did you just eat them bite after bite, making full eye contact with her until it was gone...

LIA 06:15 
I sat there, we ended up having a fun conversation about pancakes and other food places in LA, but it was a really nice day, I was just sitting there, it was early in the morning, so the Grove wasn't too packed yet, and I just sat there eating my full-stack. It was delicious.

ANNA 06:30 
Yeah, I also god I love chicken and waffles. I love it. But my last meal in New York before I moved to Los Angeles was, I went a few blocks down to Harlem and I got me some chicken and waffles and I loved it so much, and they were the most lovely people and I told them it was my last night in New York and the cook came out and hugged me. 

LIA 06:51 
Oh, that's so sweet. So you know, when I was growing up in the South as a little Filipino kid, I had no clue about chicken and waffles, and the first time I had it, I wasn't sure I just put the syrup on the waffles.

ANNA 07:06 
Oh, You kept them separate.

LIA 07:07 
Yeah. And my friends are like, No, put it on the chicken. And so I'd already had this crazy other experience with chicken and gravy, but I didn't know to put gravy on my chicken, I put it on potatoes, but they're like, I put the gravy on the chicken... It's good. So now they're telling me, put the syrup on the chicken.

ANNA 07:32 
I love it. You're like, Okay, guys, pick a lane. Am I supposed to put gravy? Is it sugar sauce? What do you want from me and my chicken?

LIA 07:42 
I was like, okay, so you put pancake syrup on the chicken like... Yeah, it’s so good. Just do it. And you can imagine like.

ANNA 07:51  
You were peer pressure, you're like...

LIA 07:52 
It's like, Okay, I'll do.

ANNA 07:54 
My mom said never to do this. I'm just supposed to say no.

LIA 08:00 
Stranger danger they are telling me to do things I don't want to. But man, I put that syrup on there, and then I put more and more and it was so good. So Maple syrup, Anna. I started thinking about how it's made, and then I thought, Is it really that easy? Because the way, my very simple understanding of it is to get pure maple syrup, which comes from the sap of maple trees, sugar maple, red maple, black Maples, other Maple species, you find the tree, you drill a hole in it and plug in a spouty thing, and then hang a bucket from the spouty thing to collect the sap, or if you're fancy, you can use a system of tubes to collect the sap, and then you take that bucket of sap or tube of sap, and you bring it to your Sugar Shack where you boil it.

ANNA 08:54 
The sugar shack is where it all happens.

LIA 08:56 
The magic does happen in the sugar shack.

ANNA 08:59 
The sugar shack is where the magic happens.

LIA 09:01  
But in the Sugar Shack, it's basically the spot where you're boiling the SAP to cause the water to evaporate, therefore leaving behind that beautiful maple syrup. And that's pretty much it, right?

ANNA 09:14 
Is it? It seems pretty simple. /Cool.

LIA 09:16 
Yeah /Because I was like... Is there more? And... No. The process itself is pretty straight forward now, it's very labor-intensive, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make a gallon of maple syrup.

ANNA 09:32 
What? So it must be mostly water.

LIA 09:35 
It's mostly water, so when it's coming out, it looks crystal clear, and so in that sugaring process and the magic in the Sugar Shack causes that water to... Yeah, evaporate just leaving behind that pure sticky syrup. But yes, 40 gallons of sap to make a gallon of maple syrup. And for the tree to be large enough to tap, it has to be about 12 inches or so in diameter or around 40 years old. So now these are very mature, older trees.

ANNA 10:08 
So it's not like if you wanna expand your operation, you can just plant some trees and in a couple of years... Wow.

LIA 10:13 
Yeah, so you've gotta find these mature trees, wise trees, wise trees, they yield the best sap, I guess. Yeah, and each tree, I guess, yields around, they say 10 to 12 gallons of sap in a season, a season's four to six weeks, so that it's a lot of trees, a lot of sap to be collected. Yeah, so when you think about it, alright, we've got the simple process, but it's pretty intense, and what you're getting out of it is probably one of the most all-natural foods you can get, I mean, it's an all-natural sweetener. It's gotta be full of a ton of minerals and antioxidants, it's coming straight from the trees. Thanks, trees, thanks Earth, and all of the stuff makes your pancakes and other foods taste really good. For me, that's all the reason you need to celebrate Maple syrup. 

ANNA 11:03 
Absolutely. It is amazing to me that it's such a simple food, but also so intense to make. 

LIA 11:09 
Yeah, you are so right. Which made me start thinking, Anna. Okay, it takes a lot of work to get the sweet stuff. It's gotta be expensive, it's laborious. So, like why did so many people, especially in the old days in the eighteen hundreds in New England, before you had any kind of maple syrup technology to help you, why did they go through the trouble of making maple syrup and maple sugar when there was regular sugar already available as a sweetener. 

ANNA 11:33 
That’s a really good point. Yeah, I never thought of that. 

LIA 11:36 
Yeah, I started wondering about that. Yeah, it just made me wonder, like, that’s a lot of work. So why did we do it? So, I started to do some research. You know how we are. And just nerd out on all of this. And I found out that making maple syrup and maple sugar, back in the day, was a way to boycott slavery, because white sugar, can sugar was made with slave labor.

ANNA 12:00 
Oh. Oh, that makes so much sense. That’s cool. 

LIA 12:05 
Yeah, so it was a really political act. So when I was doing this research about why in the eighteen hundreds we were making maple syrup and maple sugar, I ended up reading an article about this woman named Rachel Gilben Robinson from Vermont, who was born in 1799 and later became a pretty outspoken abolitionist along with her husband Roland, so Rachel founded the Vermont anti-slavery society. And her farm home was actually part of the underground railroad. Yeah, so she had housed and sheltered many fugitive slaves at home. And in this article, from the Vermont Historical Society about Rachel and her family, It said that she was so staunch in her values, that she boycotted all slave-made goods. So, no sugar. No cotton, coffee, no tobacco. 

ANNA 12:55 
Woah, that’s a commitment. Especially back then, they did not have a lot of artificial material, synthetic material to, or foods and things like that, to supplement like we sometimes have today to make sure you don’t have anything that’s made by enslaved workers. But they didn’t have that back then, so that’s a huge commitment. 

LIA 13:15 
Yeah, you know she was very rigid, you know, in her belief system and so she tried to pass those values along to her family and to others. And it turns out, this was amazing, that other people and other women especially also began to participate in these boycotts in the mid-1830s. So Rachel, and other women’s anti-slavery societies, started to organize these things called Ladies Anti-Slavery Fairs. Which were like craft shows and bake sales that featured items and foods made without using slave-produced goods. Like the cane sugar. So, you know, these fairs were events that could encourage other women on how to make maple syrup and maple sugar, you know, giving them these good, ethical alternatives to things like cane sugar. 

ANNA 14:03 
That is so cool. And especially if they are in Vermont and New England where they have the trees there, then they know for sure that it's not being made with inhumane, you know, treatment and labor. 

LIA 14:14 
Exactly. And you know, it was so cool that they have these, but it was also a way for women to have influence in politics. They couldn’t vote. They couldn’t go out and become public speakers or hold office so easily. But, they could bake in their kitchens, they had some purchasing power. So they could choose ingredients as a way to show their values and their beliefs, and to send a message. 

ANNA 14:38 
Yeah, which we still can. We still can choose which products we choose to eat and to send a message to, you know express our values with our dollars. This reminds me of something Abigail Adams said to John Adams when this country was being created, “you men make the politics, but we women live it.” And I think that because we don’t hear these women’s names, because our accomplishments aren’t celebrated, the way that they should be, we have this image that, oh women have just been, you know, in the kitchen all these years. Which first of all, is not a small job, but second of all, even, women were fighting from the kitchen. From whatever corners that women were shoved into, in history, women were still fighting, and still living their values, and that super cool. 

LIA 15:21 
Yeah, I love that. And this story is just such a great example of that. 

ANNA 15:26 
Cool. Well, I feel like celebrating maple syrup, so when do we get to do that? 

LIA 5:30 
Me too. So we do have maple syrup day coming up and it is on December 17th. So, I’m pretty excited about it because now, when I celebrate, I can go really hard on the maple syrup consumption and not feel bad. And also know that I am celebrating along with Rachel Gilfen Robinson and the ladies' anti-slavery societies. 

Now, we don't really know the origin of that day, so this is one of those that I guess the internet hereby claimed it as the day. But even though there's not an official decree for National Maple Syrup Day, there are some legit maple syrup celebrations that some different states have recognized. But in 2014, Minnesota declared March and April to be Maple Syrup Months. Yeah, they picked two months that year to devote to maple syrup. And according to the official state proclamation, quote, “Minnesota is one of the 19 states that produce pure maple syrup and is the westernmost producing state in the United States.

ANNA 16:37 
Do you think that Minnesota was just like, d***, Idaho's got potatoes Wisconsin's got cheese? What we do got? Let's lean into the syrup thing.

LIA 16:48 
 Yeah. We have so many. Just ripe for tapping.

ANNA 16:51 
You just gotta tap that. There's gonna be a lot of “tap that” jokes today listeners, just prepare yourself.

LIA 0:16:58 
And another state that has its own official maple syrup month is Wisconsin, and what they do is they kick it off with a ceremonial first tree tapping, and they do this little ceremony and event in different parts of Wisconsin. So like everybody gets a turn getting their tree tapped.

ANNA 0:17:17 
I bet they have some sick cheese and maple syrup combinations, we have not thought of yet.

LIA 0:17:22
I was just thinking, imagine like a fried cheese curd. With maple syrup.

ANNA 17:28 
Oh, hell yes, let's invent this. Wisconsin, call us. 

LIA 17:32 
Wisconsin.

ANNA 17:33 
Wisconsin,/ we got ideas. Minnesota and Wisconsin, not what we think of for maple syrup, but when I was doing research, I did see that the earliest sort of reports or evidence of Maple syrup come from Native American tribes in the Great Lakes, the Ojibwe Nations. So I saw some really cool pictures, it was mostly the female members of the Ojibwe tribe had to take care of the maple trees and the maple syrup producing systems, so it makes sense that in the same Great Lake states, we would have some production still going on.  Are there any more like notable celebrations? 

LIA 18:12 
So in addition to these maple syrup days and the months that are being celebrated, there are some pretty cool festivals in the US that are dedicated to showcasing this tradition of making maple syrup. So, I’m going to point out a few that I think are pretty interesting. So, Indiana hosts the National Maple Syrup Festival. They are calling the National Maple syrup festival, and they hold it in the city of Medora at a place called Burton's Maplewood Farms, which is a farm started by Tim Burton. Not that Tim Burton, but I did get excited when I read about it and I was like, Tim Burton started a farm?

ANNA 18:45
Is that where he grew Helena Bonam Carter? / that's where she came from.

LIA 18:49 
Yes, /that's where she came from that. Makes sense.

ANNA 18:53 
I believe it.

LIA 18:54 
So every year, this Tim Burton and his family have a national maple syrup festival at their family farm, you can discover tree tapping, how it's made, and find a bunch of interesting foods that are made with maple syrup. And then Minnesota, which I mentioned earlier, has that whole month dedicated to Maple syrup, they have festivals throughout the state, but something really cool that they offer is that some of the state parks in Minnesota have a make your own program, like a sap to Syrup program that you can sign up for. Which I totally wanna do.  I think it would be so exciting.

ANNA 19:31 
So you get to pick a tree?

LIA 19:33 
So you can pick a tree and you get to tap the tree, and then get to go through the process of what making the syrup is like.

ANNA 19:39 
Cool.

LIA 19:40 
Yeah.

ANNA 19:41 
I gotta say if I did that, if I put a tap in a tree and any sap came out, I would be so freaking excited, I mean... It's so simple, but I would be like, it's working. It's working.

LIA 20:53
Oh, yeah. Me too. And of course, well Vermont has all kinds of maple syrup celebrations as it is the top producer of maple syrup in the US, when maple syrup season starts, Vermont does an open house weekend, so you can go check out sugar shacks, which seems really cool.

ANNA 20:10 
I did tour a maple sugar farm in Vermont once, and the coolest thing was all the tubes. It's like, you know those giant hamster tube connected things, it's like that combined with a mad scientist lab in a forest.

LIA 20:25 
Oh, I really wanna go.

ANNA 20:27 
Yeah, man, field trip.

LIA 20:29 
We will have to do that. So in addition to the open houses that they do, Vermont also has their annual Vermont Maple Festival, which next year celebrates its 54th anniversary. What I love about this Vermont Maple Festival is they've got all sorts of events and activities, I love art, and they do an art show, which they call The Sappy Art Show and it's so cute. You're invited to submit your work, whatever medium you wish to create it in, of course, related to some kind of maple syrup theme. On their website, they have this beautiful oil painting of a stack of pancakes with syrup just dripping off of it. It's so beautiful. You could see the texture /and the brush strokes.

ANNA 21:12 
You know they mixed maple syrup into their acrylic paints.

LIA 21:14 
Oh, that has to be part of it. 

ANNA 21:16 
That's how it got that sheen. 

LIA 21:20 
So I'm ready for a trip to Vermont.

ANNA 21:21 
Yes. We have so many field trips we have to do Lia. It's crazy.

LIA 21:25 
Well, I guess what the nice thing is all we may not be able to make the field trip right now, we do have a special guest.

ANNA 21:32 
We do have a special guest.

LIA 21:34 
Who can tell us all about Vermont?

ANNA 21:36 
We can't get to Vermont so we're bringing Vermont to you in the form of a special guest. So for today's episode, we really wanted to understand the culture around Maple syrup, but instead of doing a bunch of research and giving it back to you guys, we decided to invite our very first guest on to Every Day is a Food Day, to give us a first-hand account of Maple culture, our resident Maple Syrup expert. My intern from Vermont. Emma Massey. Hi Emma.

EMMA 22:12 
Hi.

ANNA 22:14 
How are you doing Emma?

EMMA 22:15 
Pretty good, how about yourself?

ANNA 22:18 
We're good, we're excited. We're excited to have you here. We already wanted to do an episode about maple syrup, but then when you started telling me a little bit about just all the varieties of syrup, the ways you can get Syrup the commitment of the people. Because it's a stereotype. Right, like you think Vermont, maple syrup, but it's real, it's real.

EMMA 22:42  
It's real. It's the real deal here. Absolutely...

ANNA 22:46 
Okay, so tell us a little bit about that. What role does maple syrup play in the lives of Vermont and Mainers? Is it Mainers? Did I just make that up?

EMMA 22:53 
Yeah, Mainers, yeah that's correct.

ANNA 23:00         
Mainers.

EMMA 23:05 
Yeah, so, kind of a call back to the pumpkin spice episode, Maple flavoring is in almost anything that you can think of, there's Maple soap, there's Maple shampoo, there's Maple conditioner, there's maple gourmet jelly beans. There are different kinds of maple syrup, there's Maple Tabasco sauce, there's Maple-infused coffee, which is my favorite Maple product, I would say. Yeah, it's very tasty Maple lattes which is just kind of like the pumpkin spice latte, Maple lattes are a huge thing here.

ANNA 23:38
So Is this stuff mostly found in Maine or found in Vermont, like if you go to a cafe or something in Maine or Vermont, you're gonna get a lot of maple options.

EMMA 23:49 
Yeah, so I would say in Maine, a little less so than in Vermont, because that's kind of the draw of Vermont here, especially for the leaf peepers when they come, they're like, Oh, you can go and get maple syrup...

ANNA 23:59 
I'm sorry, the what?

LIA 24:02 
The leaf peepers?

EMMA 24:03 
So there is this kind of surge of people that come in the Fall to Vermont, and we call them the leaf peepers because they come and peep the leaves pretty much, and all the beautiful leaves. I didn't realize that wasn't a term that people didn't know.

ANNA 0:24:19  
I have never heard that. And it sounds so lewd. Like what... It sounds like people are waiting across the street from the trees and they've got little binoculars, they're creeping on/ them.

EMMA 24:30 
/There are some binoculars for sure.

ANNA 24:32 
Creepin and peepin on them leaves.

EMMA 24:36 
That's pretty much it. So when people come to peep the leaves, they also have a plethora of Maple syrup products to pick from, which is probably Maple syrup candy and Maple syrup for the two most popular ones.

ANNA 24:51 
So what are some of the weirder things you've had maple on or in?

EMMA 24:55 
There's a really big thing with flavoring things with maple, like hot sauces and putting Maple into dishes, like my mom actually makes Brussels sprouts with soy sauce and maple syrup, and it doesn't sound like it would be that good, but it is probably my favorite way to flavor to the brussels sprouts now.

LIA 25:14 
Okay, now that recipe, Emma, that sounds...That sounds delicious.

EMMA 25:17
It's amazing. So honestly, in cooking, people just kind of throw maple syrup in it, like with whatever maple syrup on asparagus, maple syrup in a stir fry like really anything. It's really crazy. People get really creative here with it.

ANNA 25:32 
That combination sounds alarming to me, but... I will trust you that it's good. It's just sugar, right?

EMMA 25:40 
Yeah, it's really just sugar.

ANNA 25:43 
Now, Emma, I hear you saying syrup.

EMMA 25:44 
Yes.

ANNA 25:46 
I've always said syrup, but I hear you saying syrup. Is that a thing is that arbitrary... Are there camps? One way or the other.

EMMA 25:54
I personally think that almost everyone in Vermont and potentially New England, maybe not Maine, because Mainers have more of a Bostonian accent, UM say syrup, 'cause I feel like maple syrup sounds very weird coming out of my mouth, but... Maple syrup sounds correct.

ANNA 26:10 
Syrup. Alright, I'll try it. Maple Syrup. Will people correct you if I come to Vermont and I'm like, Hi, I'd like some maple syrup. Will they be like ugh, you mean maple syrup.

EMMA 26:22
I don't think so. One thing that Vermonters will correct you on though is if you come to Vermont and ask for a maple soft-serve ice cream, they will get very mad at you because here we actually call them creemees.

LIA 26:35 
I was gonna ask, what is a creemee? I saw something called a creemee.

EMMA 26:41
I think it's just a creamier or soft serve, I think that that's why they call it that because it's just.

ANNA 26:46 
Like a frozen custard type thing.

EMMA 26:49 
Not frozen custard is hard ice cream, so they call it specifically here... I don't do this because I'm from Maine, so I don't actually fall into this category, but my roommate who is from Vermont, says Hard ice cream and creemees those are what she calls them because I just say ice cream and I think of hard ice cream like Ben and Jerry's or whatever.

ANNA 27:09 
I never heard anybody distinguish hard ice cream.

EMMA 27:13 
Hard Ice Cream. It was weird when I first heard it, I was like, What do you mean? And she was like Like, harder ice cream, not creemees. And I was like, No, no, that's ice cream.

LIA 27:21 
Oh, I thought there was alcohol in it. Like a hard /lemonade.

ANNA 27:25  
Like a hard lemonade.

LIA 27:29  
I was... Sorry, I was really picturing, like, are children eating this or... Yeah.

ANNA 27:35 
So what about individual culture, do people have pride in their own brand of maple syrup? Is it something that they make at home, like craft brew?

EMMA 27:46 
Yeah, so, making maple syrup is the New England dad's version of brewing an IPA in his garage. But also he brews an IPA in his garage. I walked around, I've been on walks with my mom before, and we have seen so many Maple TAPS just all over the place, people will just go out and tap a tree, I mean, I think it has to be on their land, I bet there are rules and regulations about that, but they'll bring it back, I'll see them lugging buckets of sap back to their house, dads on a stove, getting ready to boil down that maple syrup so they can make literally one little gallon... Maple syrup with all of this sap that they have. 

ANNA 28:28 
I can totally see just like Vermonter dads in shorts being like, No, man, no... You gotta simmer it longer. You gotta simmer it. Also, everybody's got walking around with a tap in their back pocket just so they can like. /How many tap that jokes do you hear on an average week in Vermont.

EMMA 28:44 
/ I'd tap that. Just pointing at a tree. Honestly, not that many, but I should really bring them here.

ANNA 28:50 
You gotta just stare at a big thick maple and be like,/ Ugh I gotta tap that.

EMMA 28:57 
With your arms crossed. Really just look it up and down. Objectify that tree. I gotta tap that...

ANNA 29:05 
That's your assignment, Emma.

EMMA 29:07 
Okay, on it.

LIA 29:09  
Well, being in Vermont, the number one maple syrup... I saw that there is a Vermont Maple festival and I was curious if you've ever been to it or heard about it, but it seems like one of those places like a county fair where they show of all kinds of innovative foods that the Vermont Maple Festival is the place to go for all of the interesting Maple concoctions.

EMMA 29:32 
Yeah, I've actually personally never been to a Vermont one, but I've been to a Maine one. It's called the Cumberland fairgrounds They make maple syrup, like cotton candy, they make maple syrup ice cream. There's also this really big thing, mostly actually in Vermont, I've seen this where people take maple syrup and just pour it over ice and take a stick and roll the maple syrup and the ice and just eat it kind of like a popsicle.

ANNA 29:54
I saw that.

EMMA 29:59 
Yes, and the first introduction I had to the University of Vermont was a tent outside of the student center that had a huge ice bucket with shaved ice and maple syrup, and they were just pouring lines of maple syrup on this ice and just rolling it and giving it to students like Welcome to UVM, that was their introduction. Yes, yes. And I was like, This is probably the weirdest thing I've ever seen, but I'm gonna go along with it like this is fine. I'm getting free food.

LIA 30:27 
I love that so much.

ANNA 30:29
Man, remember when people handed you food and stuff? Remember... I remember when you would willingly eat snow from a bucket.

EMMA 30:39 
That someone else rolled for you.

ANNA 30:41 
That someone else put their hands on and rolled for you, and then you put it straight in our mouth.

EMMA 30:45 
Straight into your mouth. Yep.

ANNA 30:47 
So what would happen if you came home with just a regular old bottle of house brand Aunt Jemima? 

EMMA 30:54 
Oh no, no. We don't do that here. No, no.

ANNA 30:59 
That was the most serious I've ever seen you. Like just the thought.

EMMA 31:05 
I don't even like it. I don't even like it anymore, I used to like it when I was little because it was sugarier and you know, the high fructose corn syrup was yummy when you were seven. Now, I really have an aversion to it, I feel like a snob.

LIA 31:18 
So what's the weirdest Maple thing that you've ever had?

EMMA 31:21 
I personally have had a maple bacon latte. That was weird.

LIA 31:26 
Like bacon in...the latte

EMMA 31:30 
So, actually, people make bacon flavoring for coffee, so like an amaretto flavoring for coffee, like a chocolate flavoring... There is a Bacon flavoring for coffee, and someone made a drink that was the Maple bacon latte, so they put the Maple flavor and the bacon flavor in and they served it.

ANNA 31:47 
Okay, that's pretty weird. Well, what's weirder to me would be a bacon late without Maple... Just a bacon latte. Is that a thing?

EMMA 31:54 
I wonder if that's ever been ordered, I don't know.

LIA 31:57 
Hold the maple.

EMMA 31:59 
I really don’t know. But Maine and Vermont are really good about doing weird things with food.

ANNA 32:06 
I've had the maple bacon donut.

EMMA 32:07 
Was that good?

ANNA 32:10  
Mmmhmm. It's the salty with the sweet. It's like a... It's like a maple glazed donut with bacon crumbles.

EMMA 32:16  
I feel like that's what they were trying to accomplish with the Maple bacon latte, the salty and sweet, but then there's just so much milk. What's happening? Why am I drinking Maple milk with bacon also? And then there's caffeine in there.

ANNA 32:32 
Oh, man. I'm gonna veto that. That's gonna be a nope from me.

EMMA 32:36 
I also veto that. Did not finish it. Gotta be honest.

ANNA 32:40 
Well, this is great Emma, thank you so much for the first-hand account of the land of Maple. Yes, we hope that we do it justice in this episode, we hope to be proud.

EMMA 32:50 
Yeah, I hope so too. I bet you will…

ANNA 32:53 
Now, maple syrup may seem like innocent fun, but it’s not all waffles and snow buckets, okay. It’s serious business. Coming up in the Deep Dish, we’re going to talk about Vermont’s maple syrup laws, and how it took on the golden arches. Then we’ll dig into Quebec’s complicated maple syrup industry, its controversial strategic maple syrup reserve, and how it set the stage for the greatest heist in Canadian history.

ANNA 33:29 
Episode for Deep Dish, take one. Three, two in one. It was a good second. That was good. I feel good. Okay, I feel good. Okay. So as I was doing research and looking for a theme, I knew he wanted to do people syrup, I kept thinking to myself, people are really serious about Maple syrup. Guys this is serious business. This is like legal, litigious, serious business. And then I went to the Vermont maple sugar makers Association website, and it literally says, we take our syrup seriously. So I interpreted the situation correctly.

LIA 34:13 
You sure did. This is no joke.

ANNA 34:16 
 Okay, so Emma I told us a lot about the culture around maple syrup in Vermont and the North East, and I wanted to talk a little bit more about the serious stuff about the economy and the laws around it, 'cause I think they're really fascinating. So Vermont is the leading state in the United States in maple syrup production, according to the Northeastern region, maple syrup report by the natural agriculture statistics service. I assume that everyone listening to this is up-to-date on the National Agriculture Statistics Services regional reports, I'm not gonna bore you with all of the details.

LIA 34:48 
That's one of my favorite things to read on my downtime.

ANNA 34:51 
It's on the back of Lia's toilet...Vermont has put out 22 million gallons of maple syrup so far in 2020, 4.4 million gallons total in the US. In 2013, the Vermont Maple industry contributed between $317 to 330 million in sales to the state of Vermont. So like, No wonder. They're very protective of it. Yeah.

LIA 35:17
I would be...

ANNA 35:19 
That's a big crop...

LIA 35:20 
A lot of money.

ANNA 35:21  
And Vermont has 10 pages of Maple laws, and they're not just around production of distribution, they're also about labeling and advertising, they have multiple laws that are very strict and specific for how the term Maple is allowed to be used and advertised in the state, so Title 6, chapter 32, section 492, paragraph D states it is illegal to use the word maple on a product unless the sweetener is 100% pure Maple. Artificial Maple flavoring should be clearly and conspicuously labeled on the principal panel with the term artificial flavor. Serious business.

LIA 36:03  
It is serious.

ANNA 36:05 
Serious. And these laws only apply in Vermont, but for a lot of food companies, it doesn't make sense for them to make a different packaging and different labeling for just one state, so even though the laws are actually only on the books in Vermont, companies that make maple flavored things end up following them. For the whole country, right? Because Vermont will sue your a**.

LIA 36:25 
Don't mess with Vermont.

ANNA 36:27 
Vermont will sue your a**. They have sued all kinds of products for putting maple on, listing maple when it wasn't pure maple, and even for doing things like not using the word Maple book, putting maple trees on their packaging because they're implying that its people...

LIA 36:44  
Wow, that is strict.

ANNA 36:46 
But my favorite lawsuit from Vermont is actually... They went after McDonald's, McDonald’s.

LIA 36:53 
That's so big. To go after McDonald's.

ANNA 36:57 
Right? Bold. That is a bold move, but you gotta stick to your principles, Vermont. McDonald's tried to market a product called Fruit and Maple Oatmeal, which contained no traces of real maple sugar, which clearly violates Title 6, chapter 32. Section 492 paragraph d of the statutes. Hello. So this product hadn't rolled out yet in Vermont, and Vermont gave McDonald's 60 to 90 days to respond to their complaint or else they would not be allowed to sell it in the state of Vermont. Wow, so when this product was available, the compromise, they came to. McDonald's compromised, people.

LIA 37:40 
Wait.

ANNA 37:41 
Yes, McDonald's met their lawsuit. The compromise was when this product was available specifically in the State of Vermont, McDonald's was required to offer pure maple syrup as a condiment with their Fruit and Maple Oatmeal. So that's how they got around that.

LIA 38:02 
So then, did, I guess McDonald's had to purchase maple from Vermont.

ANNA 38:08 
I guess. I guess. Oohhh...

LIA 38:11 
'cause they're like, Okay, Okay, fine. Here's what we can do, we will buy your maple.

ANNA 38:16 
That's smart. One way for you to get around this is to go to Sally Joe's House of maple syrup packets, buy a million of them, hand them out with the oatmeal.

LIA 38:31 
Vermont’s….They're smart. /They're smart.

ANNA 38:34 
/That's sneaky. But I really like that and I couldn't find anything that was sort of an economical financial reason behind that, other than just pride. They have such pride in their maple and their maple sugar and what it is, they have pride in the fact that it's pure. And they want to really protect the integrity of that product that is so closely associated with themselves or identity, their culture. And I thought that was really cool. 

LIA 39:00  
That is very cool. 

ANNA 39:03
But the Vermont/McDonald's kerfuffle cannot hold a candle to the story of the great Canadian maple syrup heist. Lia, are you ready for the story?

LIA 39:12
Yes!

ANNA 39:14 
We need some like Ocean’s 11 heist music here. [Heist music starts]  To properly tell this story. 

LIA 39:19  
Oh yeah, we gotta set the mood. 

ANNA 39:21 
This story is so juicy…

LIA 39:23
I can’t wait.

MUSIC 39:35 
 HEIST MUSIC ENDS

ANNA 39:35 
So for some context, Quebec produces 72% of the world's maple syrup. Ok. One barrel of maple syrup goes for $1800, which makes it 26 times more expensive than crude oil. It is one of the most valuable materials on earth. So if you think $12 for that tiny ass little jug of maple syrup is insane. You're kinda right. So, being a maple syrup producer on its own is pretty risky because the yield every year is completely dependent on the weather and the environment, this is not something you can artificially grow or make, this is not something that you can produce in a greenhouse, Right. So if there's a bad yield, if there's terrible weather, you're just not going to produce anything, and that meant that unchecked, the market was very, very volatile. So the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, which I cannot pronounce in French, so I'm just going to be referring to as the FPAC was formed to regulate and stabilize this market and the flow of maple syrup into the market, and therefore the price. So Rich Cohen in a Vanity Fair exposé explains how this all works: “There are 13500 maple syrup producers in Quebec, each is permitted to send a fixed amount to FPAC for sale that year, a quota which was established in 2004. Members of the Federation and Quebec bulk producers are required to join, give their harvest over to the FPAC, which inspects tastes and grades the syrup, some of it is sold immediately and the rest is stored in the reserve, anything over the quota is stored in the reserve. Producers are paid only when the syrup is sold. Which could be years. And FPAC keeps a $54 tax on every barrel that pays for advertising, testing, the recipes upkeeping the reserve, and so on. In this way, the Federation steadies supply filling the coffers in banner years, satisfying demand and fallow years. In this way, the price of syrup is stabilized benefiting even the competitors across the border.” Lia, how do you think sugar makers feel about having to hand over everything they make?

LIA 41:57 
Oh my gosh, that does not sound like a sweet deal at all. 

ANNA 42:02 
That's more like a sour deal. I bet they feel pretty bitter about it. Right. So look, people, the puns were happening today, we're just leaning into it. So yes, the maple producers - many of whom are small, family-owned operations - are subject to strict regulations, quotas, injunctions, unannounced inspections, and confiscation of their syrup. Some of them, understandably, have a real problem with this. They say that the FPAC has way too much power, makes their business inflexible, and impossible to run the way they need it to in order to survive. Here’s a sugar maker named Robert Hodge, speaking about this in a video from the NY Times.

CLIP 42:54 
The Dark Side of Maple Syrup, NY Times - Roger Hodge

“Sugaring is in my blood. I like the freedom of being my own boss and being out in the woods. I’ve had memories of gathering sap up here in these sugar place when I was 15 years old. I get a little emotional myself when I start talking about it, you know. We make that syrup. We bought the land. We put the equipment in the sugar camp. Why should anybody be telling us the product is not ours to do as we please.” 

ANNA 43:33 
Some producers have also accused the FPAQ of even more aggressive behavior like harassment and threats. Here’s another sugar maker named Steve Cote. 

CLIP 43:45
The Dark Side of Maple Syrup, NY Times -  Steve Cote

“He says I’m coming to take the federations syrup. I said it’s not the federations syrup, it’s my syrup. They took everything. They didn’t leave one can for my family. They put security guards to watch over us and watch over the syrup so we can’t sell any. It’s crazy. It’s just simple crazy.” 

ANNA 44:14 
So a lot of maple syrup farmers have rebelled, they've pushed back against all of this. Some of them have turned to selling their products on the maple syrup black market. So they sell their excess maple syrup directly to dealers, which then puts it in smaller batches and distribute it across the border and other parts of Canada. Rather than handing over their extra to the FPAC, the maple syrup black market got a huge boost in 2011 because of a record Maple harvest, lots of Maple produced over the quota. Which set the stage for the Great maple syrup Heist...

LIA 44:54
Oh my God. /Tell me more.

ANNA 44:58 
/You ready? Excess syrup is held in the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. 

CLIP 45:03
 FPAQ: The Maple Syrup Reserve - Intro
The world strategic reserve. The jewel of the Maple Syrup producers of Quebec. Located here is the only maple syrup reserve in the world. The production of over 215 million pounds or 360 million barrels of maple syrup since the early 2000s, has contributed to excellence.

ANNA 45:23 
That was from a promotional video that was actually put out by FPAQ that is definitely not propaganda. Lia, if you were worried that that little video was propaganda… Don’t. Don’t be. 

LIA 45:37 
Ok.

ANNA 45:40 
(whispers) They’re listening. 

LIA 45:41 
I’m scared!

ANNA 45:43 
Inside the reserve, maple syrup is held and labeled white barrels stacked floor to ceiling. The images of these warehouses are really incredible, we'll post some pictures on social so you guys can see them, and each barrel weighs about 600 pounds, and in each warehouse on any given day, there are 7.5 million gallons of maple syrup. Right, so when farmers produce more than can be sold this is where it goes. Now, the maple syrup is only counted once a year. Right?

LIA 46:17  
What. Really?

ANNA 46:18 
Yes, the barrels are... They're Canadians. They trust everyone.

LIA 46:23 
They trust everyone. Okay. 

ANNA 46:25  
The barrels are inspected during a once a year inventory. 

CLIP 46:28
FPAQ Maple Syrup Reserve - Inventory
Mandated by the federation, the inspection division of the external firm (something French) annually sends approximately 20 teams of quality inspectors to scrutinize the authenticity of our product - one that is so exquisite and renowned.

ANNA46:43 
So in July 2012, a man named Michelle Govreau, I apologize, was doing the annual inventory, and how he did it was he would walk on the barrels, the barrels weigh 600 pounds, so it's really easy to climb up, then they'll hold their weight. Until he stepped on one...and it started to totter, and he almost came crashing down to the floor of this warehouse. And he was like WTF but in French... And they opened up that barrel and found that it was empty.

LIA 47:19 
Quell surprise!

ANNA 47:22
Zout alors! Then he opened up another barrel and it was empty, and they opened up another barrel and it was filled with murky water.

LIA 47:32  
What? No...

ANNA 47:34      
All told, the FPAQ had been robbed of approximately 10,000 barrels, which equals 540,000 gallons or 12.5% of the entire reserve and no one had suspected a thing. And...there were no security cameras! Come on, Canada. So, everybody was called in, this was the biggest federal investigation in Canadian history, the Quebec police, the Mounties, the Canadian FBI, US Customs got involved. Because no one could figure out who had done this and how it would be done right? Syrup is f***in’ heavy.

LIA 48:18 
Right? How? And they are filling it back up with murky water.

ANNA 48:22 
Right, where had people been taking the syrup? Where were they hiding it? How long had it been going on? How many people were involved? They had no idea.

LIA 48:31 
Yeah, 'cause you would think there'd be like some kind of syrup trail or something.

ANNA 48:36 
Like, you follow a trail of ants and you see where it was going, but  No. I won't get into the details, but there was this whole thing about the marks on the outside of the barrels and which ones matched up with the forklifts that they used at the facility and which ones didn't - it was a whole thing.

LIA 48:53 
This is like CSI ballistics work here.

ANNA 48:56 
Seriously. So they figured it had to be an inside job. Somebody had to be giving access to the thieves. Right? Because there's no way that anybody stole all this stuff in one day. They figured it must have been going on for a really long time, very slowly, kind of like as the sap rolls out of the maple tree into the bucket.

LIA 49:21 
That was very poetic.

ANNA 49:22 
Thank you. I was just feeling lyrical for a sec. What they uncovered was basically a massive drug ring, with syrup. There were burner phones, there were late-night meetings at truck stops, there were shoeboxes full of cash, there were players known only as “The Seller.” The men that were on trial used phrases like, don't ask where it came from. It's amazing. Yes. So the warehouse where the reserves were stored was not owned by FPAC, they rented it. Okay. They discovered that the husband of the owner of the warehouse they were renting was a man named Avic Caron, a former member of the Italian mafia. And he had granted access to the ringleader, a notorious maple syrup black market dealer named Richard Valliere. Yes. He claims to have been selling the sticky stuff on the black market for 10 years with his partner, his dad, Raymond. Richard and Raymond, the father/son team, enlisted the help of a trucker named Sebastian Jutras (Again, I apologize) to come in the middle of the night and take a few barrels at a time back to sugar shacks owned by the Valleries. So this trucker would come to the warehouse at night again, no cameras. No alarm system. The Mafia dude would let them in, they would take a few barrels at the time, take them to these sugar shacks, siphon out the syrup into other barrels, fill the barrels up with water from a creek behind the Sugar Shack, bring them back to the warehouse and put them back, and they did it for a year. Isn't that crazy. After a while to streamline the process, they started just getting identical barrels and printing replica labels. So they would show up with these fake barrels filled with creek water, swap them out for the maple syrup barrels and just be on their way. The stolen syrup was trucked south into Vermont and east to New Brunswick where it was trafficked and repackaged in many small batches, so nobody knew that it was hot, hot syrup, and sold to legitimate or up distributors at a better price. So, how you think they got caught?

LIA 51:45
I mean, so far, it seems like they've done a pretty outstanding job of being sneaky.

ANNA 51:51 
It is a pretty smooth operation. But then you'll remember that Michele when he was climbing to do the inventory stepped on a barrel and it was empty, it was not filled with creek water. What happened Lia, is a tale as old as time: They got cocky. They got cocky. They've been getting away with this for months, they got cocky, and so they stopped putting the creek water into the barrels, they just left them empty. And that's how they got caught.

LIA 52:24 
One mistake.

ANNA 52:27 
You guys, if you're gonna... If you're gonna do a long-term crime, you gotta commit... You gotta be in it for the long haul

LIA 52:32 
Right. That is a remarkable story.

ANNA 52:36
Oh, it's not done.

LIA 52:37 
Oh, there's more.

ANNA 52:40 
Well, that's the story of the heist. They got caught.

CLIP 52:42 
MAPLE SYRUP ARRESTS, Global News (2 parts)

“Quebec police have been busy this week making arrests in a theft that has made international headlines because the crime was so unique. 18 million dollars worth of maple syrup was stolen from a storage warehouse. 

“This week they’ve been harvesting their suspects. With 4 arrests today, they’ve now made 22 arrests in total with 3 suspects still on the loose. Among the charges, theft, conspiracy, and fraud”

ANNA 53:08  
All four of the ones I mentioned, the Father/Son ringleaders, the truck driver, the warehouse owner, plus a reseller named Ettiene Saint Pierre were all sentenced to prison time and fines. Isn't that a crazy story?

LIA 53:22 
That is crazy. It makes me wonder, did I have some hot syrup... At one point. Did it make it all the way? You know.

ANNA 53:29 
I didn't even think of that. Did it make it all the way to Dupar’s?

LIA 53:32 
Right, if you think about this black market and its reach and where it was going to, who's re-selling this stuff, it's possible. We could have had some hot syrup.

ANNA 53:45 
Oh man, I feel so complicit. So this story is incredible. Like, literally incredible. Because like, who knew? Who would have ever thought? I mean if you told me this story was about, like, jewelry or you know, gold bars or servers or something like that, I’d be like, yeah, sure. But like, Maple friggin syrup? Right? And it just goes to show, Lia, that even these foods, that we totally take for granted. We don’t even think about a condiment who cares, can have these big, juicy stories behind them right? I mean this story, it’s got everything. It’s got drama, it’s got tragedy, it’s got comedy. It's wound in with commerce and culture and, you know, politics. And it also made me think, why? Like, how did this happen? How did something so simple get so complicated, right? Cuz like you said earlier, you just stick a pipe in a tree, people. You need a pipe, bucket, stove, and a tree. And there you go. And I think the answer is us, really. Like I think human beings are complicated. Human beings are messy. And so, as soon as you take something, even something as simple as syrup, and you give it to humans, it gets super complicated. You know, all the way back to Rachel Gilpin Robinson. So, this actually makes me really excited, Lia, because it means, there must be more food stories out there for us to uncover. Like this one. 

LIA 55:15 
Yeah, I love this story. It’s crazy how we found out all of this stuff just because of maple syrup and maple syrup day. 

ANNA 55:24 
Thanks, maple syrup. We hope you enjoyed the show, everybody. And we will catch you next time. 

LIA 55:30 
Bye. 

OUTRO MUSIC 55:31 

CREDITS 55:36 

LIA 55:42
Thank you for joining us today for this episode of Every Day is a Food Day! 

ANNA 55:47
Help us get the word out about the show by sharing it with anyone who loves food, podcasts - or both! To help other listeners find it, leave a rating and review. Be sure to subscribe and connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @FoodDayPod and join our Facebook group. 

LIA 56:02
The clips you heard today were from the movie Elf from New Line Cinema, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, the New York Times, and the Global National News.

ANNA 55:12
EDFD is a production of Van Valin Productions and YumDay. It was created by Lia Ballentine and Anna Van Valin. Our sound designer is Steve Thompson, our production intern is Emma Massey and our marketing intern is Eric Chinn.

See you next time…