Taffy and the Belgians

My friends and I were at Stanley's Olde Maple Lane Farm today. Farm animals—a family of cats, cows, pigs, a noisy goose and cockerel—could be met in the barn and teams of Belgian horses were set to work pulling us round the muddy fields and through the maple bush on wagons. We could suck blobs of maple taffy hardened in a bed of snow from wooden sticks, a treat that lasted a good hour, so effectively did it stick to our teeth. Maple taffy is a precious commodity for it takes forty spoonfuls of sap to produce one spoonful of syrup. We visited the tumbledown sugar shack beside the farmhouse to see the syrup being reduced by steaming, an old hand at the task standing by to explain what was happening.

Here are some of Carol's photos:

At the end of the outing a generous brunch was served to about a hundred of us: pancakes, sausages, French bread, frittata and baked beans, with maple syrup a main ingredient in the preparation. A Ukranian chef, the lady who runs the Sunflower Café on Rideau Street, also gave us a cookery demonstration, showing us, for example, how to prepare a salmon fillet with slices of Granny Smith apples, maple syrup and hyssop leaves.