On Sunday mornings when I wake up early enough, I make pancakes from scratch and pour real maple syrup all over them—the deeply sweet syrup just doesn't compare to the imitation stuff. The golden syrup is available all year, but new syrup is harvested in late February and March. Expect to see freshly bottled maple syrup at farmers' markets. More

This marks the third (and final, phew) piece in our instant oatmeal tasting series. This is probably when many of you stop being jealous of our taste tests. Maple Brown Sugar, let's just call it MBS, is typically the first to go in the instant oatmeal variety pack. Can it ever taste like the good stuff from sap-flowing trees? The market has expanded beyond our childhood pal Quaker, but are any of the newcomers an improvement? The SE quest to see if decent instant oatmeal exists continues. More

Early March marks the beginning of sap season, and once the fields of maple trees are tapped, the province celebrates by opening the doors of the numerous family-owned cabanes à sucre, or sugar shacks. In 2009, chef Martin Picard—the owner of Montreal restaurant Au Pied de Cochon —retreated from the frenzied pace of his city restaurant and built a cabane à sucre in the Mirabel countryside, nearly an hour's drive outside Montreal. Take a look at the maple-centric menu: from New Brunswick oysters to the tourtière meat pie, everything involves maple syrup. More

McDonald's recently launched a new breakfast item: Maple and Fruit Oatmeal. We thought it was too sweet, and not in a maple-y way. In a whoa, hold back on the sugar way. Not a huge surprise here but the oatmeal doesn't contain actual maple syrup, just "natural maple flavoring." The Vermont Agency of Agriculture calls this a violation of the state's strict maple law. More

March means sugaring season in Vermont. After a series of warm days and freezing nights, it's time to tap those trees and begin the maple syrup-making process. Cook's Illustrated editor Christopher Kimball hopped on his four-wheeler through his farm, Two Pigs Farm, to retrieve sap from his maple trees and "sugar," or boil down the liquid. This video is not only informative but set to his bluegrass band's cover of the Grateful Dead hit Eyes of The World. More

"On average we need around 57 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup." [Photographs: Welch's Syrup] *Schoolyard Sugarbush wasn't able to send us syrup photos. Ah, late winter. A time when intrepid local eaters are sick of leftover beets and kale from the farmers' markets. But do not despair, things are starting to turn around! One of the most important and delicious signs that spring is upon us? Maple syrup season. All over the Northeast and Canada, sap is starting to flow, and thankfully people like Don Weed of Schoolyard Sugarbush in New Hope, New York, are there to harvest it and boil it down to pure, delicious, maple syrup. Yesterday was the first run of the season... More

[Flickr: jbelluch] As long as there are pancake eaters there will be maple tree tappers. Though the pastime of sugaring (the official term for harvesting sap and syrup-ifying it) is largely associated with Vermont, the biggest maple syrup producer in the U.S., it also takes place in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and apparently Brooklyn where some newbie tappers have started their own DIY projects this year. According to tapmytrees.com, making syrup is not only simple but an eco-happy process and usually happens in mid-to-late winter when evening temperatures dip to freezing. You basically just need a drill, some hollow steel pipes (referred to as "nipples"—I didn't make this up), a bucket, and maple trees. So have you ever channeled your... More

It's prime maple syrup season in Vermont right now. At Harlow's Sugar House in Putney, Vermont, that means ice chests full of saved snow (yes, actual snow instead of just crushed ice) are whipped out for the local springtime snack: Sugar on Snow. In the maple belt of New England the treat is sometimes called "leather aprons" or "leather britches" because of its leathery texture. At some sugar houses, though not Harlow's, Sugar on Snow is served with sour pickles to cut the sweetness, and saltines or plain doughnuts.... More

While perusing Cook's Illustrated editor Christopher Kimball's Twitter feed, we found this video of him and his crew "sugaring" maple sap—boiling it down to syrup. (After the jump.) February through April (depending on local conditions) is the traditional season for maple syrup production in the U.S. and Canada. It's a little difficult to hear voices in the video because the sugar house's equipment is loud, but someone made sure to pump the soundtrack up—it's Kimball's band, Shady Grove. Yes, Christopher Kimball is in a bluegrass band. Who knew!... More

Before the maple syrup sogs up pancakes, it's just clear sap sitting in sap sacks. Jack Schmidling documents the process, which started last winter (sap flow needs freezing temperatures) and has now entered the boiling and jarring phases. He heats the sap until it reaches half the concentration of syrup, then cools and reduces the liquid to reach actual syrup consistency. This year, Schmidling tapped sap from 23 silver maple trees. [via Neatorama]... More