Sugaring-off

“ They "sugar off" frequently, but it is only to ascertain whether the syrup has reached the stage where it can be taken from the fire, stirred until it granulates, and then turned into the little tins that mould it into the cakes familiar to us all.
That is what "sugaring off" means to the farmer and his wife. It means something quite different to the young people who have been planning for sugar parties long before the farmer thought of tapping his trees.
A sugar party is not a fall-dress affair. ”

“ One of the indispensable items of a sugaring off is a dish of pickles. The palates that have been surfeited with the cloying sweetness crave the relief of the acid. The advocates of the pickle-jar will assure you that after a pickle or two one can eat as much sugar as if he had not tasted it before, and a little observation and experiment leads one to believe that the theory is correct.
A pleasant variety is made by sprinkling the meats of butternuts, walnuts, or hickory-nuts on the snow, and covering these with the syrup, thus making a toothsome maple nut candy. ”

“ In this sturdy, stately tree, tapping may go on for years without seriously affecting the life of the tree or the quality of its wood. In spring, after the sugaring-off season, the maple sends forth myriads of greenish-yellow clustered flowers from which bees obtain pollen and nectar. In early summer seeds mature and fall to the ground on papery wings. Later, in autumn, sugar residue in heart-shaped thin leaves combines chemically with other substances to produce the most striking orange-yellows and reds of the hardwood landscape. ”

“ A few minutes before it comes to a boil, the scum must be carefully removed with a skimmer, or ladle,—the former is best. I consider that on the care taken to remove every particle of scum depends, in a great measure, the brightness and clearness of the sugar. The best rule I can give as to the sugaring-off, as it is termed, is to let the liquid continue at a fast boil: only be careful to keep it from coming over by keeping a little of the liquid in your stirring- ladle, and when it boils up to the top, or you see it rising too fast, throw in a little from time to time to keep it down ”

“ When the sap is all boiled in, and the product has attained a sufficient degree of concentration,—nearly equal to that of the "maple syrup" of the markets,—the fire is suffered to go down, the pan is drawn off, the syrup dipped out and strained through a flannel cloth, and stored away in pails or tin cans to await the final process of "sugaring off."
This event takes place after a few days of boiling, when the syrup has accumulated in sufficient quantities; and, as it presents the first fruits of the harvest, is usually made the occasion of a sugar-party. ”

“ On the edge of the creek was the sugar bush, and in the spring we used to help father gather the maple sap from the trees and boil it down in the old sugar house. It was hard work, but there was fun with it—the sugaring off, and making wax on the snow, and stirring the warm sugar. I tell you I feel awful sorry for boys who have never lived in the country and had any of the good times. Of [Pg 137] course we went to school, not quite a mile over the hill, and Sundays we went three miles to church.
“And best of all were father and mother! ”

“ The advent of the sugaring season is looked forward to with joy by the young people in those districts of New England where the sugar-maple grows freely. When the sap begins to flow they know that there will be fun galore, and they watch eagerly for the first mild days that will encourage the farmers to get out the sugar-buckets. ”

“ Sugaring-time is a time of hard and unpleasant work, and this was a more favourable year than usual. Davie had been too busy with other things all the winter to be able to do much in the way of improving the tools and utensils necessary in the making of sugar. By another year there would be a change, he told Katie in confidence. But in the meantime, the three great iron kettles that had been in use during his father’s lifetime made the only boiling apparatus ”

“ The snow was still deep in the woods, with a solid crust upon which we could easily walk; for we usually moved to the sugar house before the sap had actually started, the better to complete our preparations.
My grandmother worked like a beaver in these days (or rather like a muskrat, as the Indians say; for this industrious little animal sometimes collects as many as six or eight bushels of edible roots for the winter, only to be robbed of his store by some of our people) . If there was prospect of a good sugaring season, she now made a second and even a third canoe to contain the sap. ”

“ Buckle went over to the Gittins farm to help Galena, who was nearly worn out. Then he began to improve, and got better almost as fast as he had got ill.
Then the sugaring began. The trees selected were carefully numbered, an incision was made in the bark, and the little troughs made by Pam were fixed under the openings to catch the oozing syrup. When the troughs were full they were emptied into a cooking pot, which two of the sugar workers carried the round of the trees; then the pot was brought to the house, and the work of boiling and skimming began. ”

“ Pam remarked in a thoughtful tone as she attacked her second boot.
“I dare say she did.” Sophy turned her flapjack out on to the dish, where it fell with a sputtering hiss. She put another chunk of lard in the pan, and set it on the stove to get hot. “There are sugaring parties most years, and people seem to think it is great fun; but we are not all made alike, and I never can see much pleasure in getting my clothes all messed up, catching bad colds, and working until every bone in my body aches, just for amusement.” ”

“ Only the well-to-do take sugar in tea or coffee and have it for common use. Our Americans also eat quantities of candy. At the present time children eat three times as many sweets as did their parents, and the amount is constantly increasing. Doctors tell us sugar is one of the fuels necessary to the human system; it generates both heat and energy. Possibly it is because our people work so hard and are driven at such high nervous tension that they demand so much of this sort of food."
"I never knew before that candy was good for us," ejaculated Bob in surprise. ”

“ Some people think I do. My mother says so," was Van's indifferent response. "But say, tell me more about sugar. You'd think with my father right in the business I'd know something about it; but I don't. Do they get sugar from anything beside beets, and sugar-cane, and maple sap?"
"Oh, my, yes. There's sugar in ever so many other things: in grapes, and milk, and the date palm, and in maize; but it is from the beet and cane that the most sugar can be extracted." ”

“ Bob," protested he. "And at ten o'clock in the morning, too. I'll give you no more. It is too sweet. Next you know the two of you will be spending your vacation in bed and wondering what's the matter with you. Why, we'd have no sugar at all if you should stay here eating at this rate. If it's candy you're wantin', ask the cook to boil some maple-syrup until it is thick like molasses candy; then turn it out of the pan and when it is almost cool pull it until it turns white. You'll find it better than any candy you can buy. ”

“ One ounce of sugar less per person, per day, is all our Government asks of us to meet the world sugar shortage. One ounce of sugar equals two scant level tablespoonfuls and represents a saving that every man, woman and child should be able to make. Giving up soft drinks and the frosting on our cakes, the use of sugarless desserts and confections, careful measuring and thorough stirring of that which we place in our cups of tea and coffee, and the use of syrup, molasses or honey on our pancakes and fritters will more than effect this saving. ”

“ Flatulent dyspepsia, rheumatism, diabetes, and stomach acidity are only too frequently traced to an oversupply of sugar in our daily diet.
Most persons apparently think of sugar merely as a sweetening agent, forgetting entirely the fact that it is a most concentrated food. It belongs to what is called the carbohydrate group, upon which we largely depend for energy and heat. It is especially valuable to the person doing active physical work, the open-air worker, or the healthy, active, growing child, but should be used sparingly by other classes of people. ”

“ The Indian girl brought a calabash full of water, and a cone of black sugar, weighing about half a pound.
"What is that?" cried Lucien.
"Panela," answered the Indian girl.
"Poor man's sugar," interposed Sumichrast. "The manufacture of white sugar, which you saw yesterday, costs a good deal, for the laborers employed to make it have to work night and day, and thus it becomes expensive. Now, some sugar-makers avoid all this outlay, and they merely boil the juice, so that it will harden in cooling. This dark-colored sugar costs about one-half as much in making as the other." ”

“ They are not infrequently infested by a small insect, the sugar-mite, many thousands of which have been detected in a single pound of brown sugar." Cane-sugar and grape-sugar, otherwise known as sucrose and glucose, are obtained from various sources. Most of the cane-sugar consumed in England is actually produced from the sugar-cane, but of beet-root sugar there is much in the market, and in America sugar is produced from the maple, from maize, and from the "sugar grass." ”

“ The popular notion, of its having a tendency to injure the teeth, is totally unfounded. During the sugar season of the West Indies, every negro on the plantations, every animal, and even the dogs, grow fat. And no people on earth have finer teeth than the negroes of Jamaica. It is probable that this erroneous notion has been propagated by frugal housewives, in order to deter children from indulging in an expensive luxury. Sugar is readily digested by a healthy stomach. In dyspeptics, it is apt to give rise to flatulence and acidity of stomach. ”

“ CHAPTER V VAN SPRINGS A SURPRISE
The room into which they emerged was at the top of the factory, and it was here in great vats that the dry sugar was melted.
"We often melt down as many as two million pounds of raw sugar a day," said Mr. Hennessey. "The United States, you know, is the greatest sugar consuming nation in the world. No other country devours so much of it. One reason is because here even the poorer classes have money enough so they can afford sugar for household use; in many countries this is not the case. ”

“ I suppose that the main business of expressing the juice, boiling it, and drying the sugars, as well as cleansing them, are carried on here as in every part of the world, though probably there may be some difference in every country, or even in every sugar-work; nor can the distilling the spirits be very different. Nothing is wasted in a sugar-house; the trash that remains after the canes are pressed, when dried, assists as fuel in heating the furnaces; the sweet refuse water that runs off from the still is eagerly drank by the oxen, who always seem to fatten on it. ”

“ The water is then evaporated in vacuum-pans, so as to boil at about 74 degrees and to prevent conversion into grape sugar. By this process much glucose or syrup is formed, which is separated from the crystalline sucrose by rapidly revolving centrifugal machines. Great quantities of sucrose are used for food by all civilized nations. A single refinery in New York purifies 2,000,000 pounds per day.
321. Glucose, or invert sugar, the principal member of the second class, consists of two distinct kinds of sugar, —dextrose and levulose. These differ in certain properties, but have the same symbol. ”

“ Not many, however, can eat more than one, or at most two, saucerfuls of warm sugar. So, when the appetite is sated with this, and the sugar is done a little harder, merry voices call for pans of snow, or if a clean snow-bank is at hand, betake themselves to this instead, and, after having partially cooled the liquid by stirring it in the saucer, pour it slowly out upon the smooth snow-crust, where it quickly hardens and becomes brittle, making a most luscious and toothsome substitute for molasses candy. ”

“ In the preparation of sugar plums, comfits, and other kinds of confectionery, especially those sweetmeats of inferior quality, frequently exposed to sale in the open streets, for the allurement of children, the grossest abuses are committed. The white comfits, called sugar pease, are chiefly composed of a mixture of sugar, starch, and Cornish clay (a species of very white pipe-clay;) and the red sugar drops are usually coloured with the inferior kind of vermilion. The pigment is generally adulterated with red lead. ”

“ Marta had been looking on with wondering eyes to see simple sugar change from a crystal-clear syrup to [175] cream, and then to a paste, and now asked what it was for.
“That is for icing cakes, and as it will keep just so for months, it is always ready. I should have called your attention to the boiling, only there was too much on hand, and there are such delicate degrees in boiling sugar that you would need your whole attention; some time you may take sugar and experiment; there can be no waste—unless you burn it, but that will not be likely—for it can be boiled over and over again. ”

“ Transportation facilities are far from good and the manufacturers have to make up the shortage in the supply of cane by using rab and gur. If the latter should contain an excessive amount of glucose or be caramelized, it does not lose its value as an article for direct consumption; on the other hand, either of these conditions unfit it for the purposes of refining, and as there is but a slight difference in price between gur and the white sugar into which it is made, the disadvantage to the refiner is readily apparent. ”