Native American Origins of Maple Sugar

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Maple sugar is made from maple syrup, which was being used and processed into sugar long before the arrival of Europeans in North America. At the end of winter, the Native Americans would boil the sap of the maple tree to remove moisture and produce sugar that they could use throughout the rest of the year. It is commonly accepted among historians that the Europeans learned about harvesting and processing maple from the Native Americans. Sinsibuckwud is the Algonquin word for maple sugar. The Algonquin legend regarding the discovery of maple syrup's delightful flavor is that it was discovered by a chief who struck a maple tree with his ax. His wife saw the sap dripping from the tree, collected it in a bucket and used it to boil meat. …show more content…

Maple sugar was used as an alternative to cane sugar in the 17th and 18th century. Abolitionists who wanted to protest cane sugar's reliance on slave labor promoted the change. Nevertheless, cane sugar would surpass maple sugar as America's main sugar in the middle of the 19th century. Refinements to the maple syrup processing method were made around this time as well. Producers started to use evaporators to shorten the time it took to process sap into maple syrup and then into maple sugar. The 20th century would bring about further developments in the harvesting and processing of maple syrup, including the use of plastic tubing to take the sap directly to the evaporator for processing. Flavor Profile of Maple Sugar Maple sugar offers sweetness along with a light maple flavor. That maple flavor can be described as buttery with hints of vanilla and caramel. Health Benefits of Maple Sugar Unlike most other forms of sugar, maple sugar does have significant quantities of certain nutrients. Those nutrients include:

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