The Sugar Season: A Year in the Life of Maple Syrup and One Family's Quest for the Sweetest Harvest

Name: The Sugar Season: A Year in the Life of Maple Syrup and One Family's Quest for the Sweetest Harvest
Brand: DA CAPO PR INC
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)

By Douglas Whynott

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Description

A year in the life of one New England family as they work to preserve an ancient, lucrative, and threatened agricultural art- the sweetest harvest, maple syrup...How has one of America's oldest agricultural crafts evolved from a quaint enterprise with "sugar parties" and the delicacy "sugar on snow" to a modern industry?At a sugarhouse owned by maple syrup entrepreneur Bruce Bascom, 80,000 gallons of sap are processed daily during winter's end. In The Sugar Season , Douglas Whynott follows Bascom through one tumultuous season, taking us deep into the sugarbush, where sunlight and sap are intimately related and the sound of the taps gives the woods a rhythm and a ring. Along the way, he reveals the inner workings of the multimillion-dollar maple sugar industry. Make no mistake, it's big business- complete with a Maple Hall of Fame, a black market, a major syrup heist monitored by Homeland Security, a Canadian organization called The Federation, and a Global Strategic Reserve that's comparable to OPEC (fitting, since a barrel of maple syrup is worth more than a barrel of oil).Whynott brings us to sugarhouses, were we learn the myriad subtle flavors of syrup and how it's assigned a grade. He examines the unusual biology of the maple tree that makes syrup possible and explores the maples'- and the industry's- chances for survival, highlighting a hot-button issue: how global warming is threatening our food supply. Experts predict that, by the end of this century, maple syrup production in the United States may suffer a drastic decline.As buckets and wooden spouts give way to vacuum pumps and tubing, we see that even the best technology can't overcome warm nights in the middle of a season- and that only determined men like Bascom can continue to make a sweet like off of rugged land.

Product details

Edition:: illustrated
Languages:: Original: English
Number of Pages:: 304
Publisher:: DA CAPO PR INC
Publication Date:: 2014-03-04
ISBN / EAN:: 9780306822049
Weight:: 408 g
Dimensions:: 142/211/30 cm

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