Sugaring Time
For a brief period each spring in Vermont itīs sugaring time. When days are warm but nights are cool, sap begins to run in the sugar maple trees. The trees are then tapped and buckets are put under the taps, in order to collect the sap. The maple sap is boiled down in sugarhouses, until it becomes a thick, rich liquid known as maple syrup. Millions of trees must be tapped, since it takes four trees to get enough sap for a single gallon of syrup!
Maple syrup is good in vanilla ice cream. It is absolutely necessary in pancakes - the flat, flour cakes that Americans sometimes eat for breakfast. Some Americans may settle for imitation maple syrup, made in factories from water, sugar, and artificial colors and flavor. But the true pancake lover insists on having the real thing.
Randee Falk: Spotlight on the USA; Oxford University Press, 1993, page 29 f.