Best Cook: Maple Syrup Recipes
Maple means many things to Marcia Maynard. Maple means the tall trees that surround her house high on a hill above Cabot, Vermont–a house that she and her husband, Ken Denton, bought some time ago as a hunting camp, the house they gradually renovated into a permanent home. Maple means the time of year when the sap is running down through the tubing that stretches from their woods into their sugarhouse. Maple means staying up till 1:00 in the morning boiling sap, then going to work bleary-eyed just a few hours later. Maple means sweetness–all the wonderful concoctions Marcia has learned to make from the deep-amber syrup.
Marcia and Ken met after college, when they were both working for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. They married and settled first in Enosburg Falls and then in Danville, where Ken was assigned as local game warden. Weekends while their three daughters were growing up, they went to their camp, which was surrounded by about 100 acres of sugar maples and another 100 acres of fields and softwood forest. They built a handsome sugarhouse below the camp, and Marcia, always a great cook, started using maple syrup and maple sugar in her cooking. Now for sweetening she rarely uses anything but. Prominent among their family holidays is their annual “sugar-on-snow party.”
“Sugaring time–the girls come home, bring their friends, and we do sugar on snow, stay up late to boil, and then, in the morning, I make my ricotta pancakes,” Marcia says. “It’s something we love.” Years back, at camp, Marcia got used to cooking with gas by the light of gaslamps. She prepared their food by hand, no appliances, using eggbeaters and whisks to do the work of the Cuisinart. Now that she and Ken have been living there full-time since 2004, they have all the conveniences. But “I got used to cooking by hand,” Marcia says. “I like it better.”
Just as the hunting camp started out as a retreat and turned into a permanent home, the sugaring started out as a hobby and turned into a full-time job. Ken retired in 2010 after 30 years of service; they call their operation Cabot Hills Maple and sell their certified organic syrup at their Web site (cabothillsmaple.com). They make about 2,200 gallons a year–not only enough for all of Marcia’s recipes but enough to help support their simple life year-round. That’s what maple means now.
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I just finished reading this article in my Yankee Magazine & now wish Marcia could do a recipe book. So many recipe books out there for New England & not enough recipes using maple syrup!!We are in Ohio & have our 2nd year in making maple syrup. We sell by donations for missions in Honduras. Not quite as large an operation as Marcia & Ken!!Going to make the Snow on Snow Party Cakes tomorrow morning. Thanks for the wonderful article! Kathleen Sponsler
The only “maple syrup” I can get is table syrup. My sister-in-law lives in Vermont and my husband just bought me some Grade A light Amber, and some Grade A dark amber. I never knew there were grades, light vs dark, etc. After reading some articles in Yankee, I’m going to make some good cornbread, with maple ribs. Thanks a million for the education, and the recipes!
My husband, Jim, and I live in the Berkshires of Western MA and he will use nothing but REAL maple syrup on pancakes, waffles or French toast. I LOVE to bake and cook and will be taking another bread making class at King Arthur Flour in Norwich, VT in April where I bought some Grade B maple syrup last year. We have many sugar shacks and maple farms all around us here and I, too, never knew there was such a difference in the grades of maple syrup until I experienced a maple syrup tasting. I fell in love with Grade B! And I love Yankee magazine and your wonderful real-life stories and recipes. As soon as each issue arrives, I stop the world to sit in my favorite chair and move into the real world of my beloved New England. I love this article and how Marcia and Ken are raising their children around the simple life they love…if only more parents would let go of the virtual and plastic ‘stuff’ that keeps them from what’s real and natural. Thank you once again!
Woohoo Marcia! You’ve made the big-time. Just finished reading this article. Congratulations.