¶ Intro / Opening
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
And I'm Mark Skarborough. And together with Bruce, we have written 36 cookbooks, plus Bruce has written two knitting books, plus I have written a memoir, so much. And we, in fact, have more in the works. We are currently in the editorial process of a new cookbook. We'll tell you about that on down the line. But in this episode of our podcast about food and cooking, we're talking about syrup, all things syrup, maple syrups, and many, many more.
We've got a one minute cooking tip that involves, yes, you guessed it, syrup, and we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week. So let's get started.
¶ Our-minute cooking tip: add a little maple syrup to bottled salad dressings, barbecue sauces, and marinades for a flavor boost. Or stir maple syrup into softened butter.
Our one minute cooking tip. Use maple syrup to enhance simple things like salad dressings and sour cream. Just takes a few drops, little hint of sweetness, depth of flavor. Here's an idea. Stir a teaspoon or two into a softened stick of butter. Use maple syrup and coffee instead of white sugar. Swap it for a simple syrup in cocktail recipes. Those are
lots of ways to use maple syrup. So what kind of bottled salad dressing would you suggest I use with maple syrup?
Uh, you're going to mix it into a bottled dressing like any vinaigrette except balsamic because a balsamic vinaigrette is already going to be sweet. Like, so avoid the balsamic, avoid the raspberry. Go for, you know, an Italian dressing, a regular vinaigrette. You can even put a little bit into a creamy ranch would make it fabulous.
Yeah. And again, if you want a really nice spread for toast, as Bruce says, mix just a little, and we're talking a tiny little bit, maybe two teaspoons at most into a softened stick of butter. That's a tablespoons of butter or about 230 grams of butter. Uh, mix it in there and then just leave it out on the counter. It's this sweetened softened butter for toast. Delicious. Okay. Before we get to the next segment all about syrups, let us say that we do have a newsletter.
You can find this newsletter by going to our website, bruceandmark. com or cookingwithbruceandmark. com. You can sign up there and then you can get about once a month, twice a month maybe. You can get various newsletters about our topics, including one for this. podcast episode about syrups. We'll send you a newsletter that includes our favorite syrup makers who have not supported this podcast and have given us nothing in return. Bastards.
No, I'll just send you the links to find our favorite syrup makers. So let's get to talking about tree syrups.
¶ All about tree syrups: maple, black walnut, birch, and beech. A true treat. We'll share our tasting notes with you. If you sign up for our newsletter at , you can find our about our favorite producers.
It's fall in New England. We have apples. We got pumpkins. We got gourds. We got cider donuts. We got mums. We got a lot of
gourds.
And for some reason, there's a lot of maple syrup to be had in the fall, isn't it weird?
Yeah, it is weird. If you don't know this, people think of maple syrup when the trees in New England turn red and gold. But in fact, sugaring, as it's called, happens in the late winter, it's not even spring, in the very late autumn. winter. And although it looks like it should happen now with apples and beautiful trees, in fact, it's the exact wrong time of year. So here's the deal. If you don't know about how this works during the summer, maple trees and only.
Two sorts of maple trees make syrup, right? The
sugar maple and the red maple.
Okay, so we get these two species, which are abundant here in New England, sugar maples and red maples. And during the summer, through photosynthesis, they create sugar and that sugar travels down the tree into the roots. And it's stored as carbohydrates in the roots when the spring thaw comes. And we're talking really the late winter thaw, not even the spring
off in the end of January is when you start putting your holes and your taps into the trees. I
mean, I'll tell you that Bruce and I have lived in rural New England for 18 years. And when we first moved up here, it was usually around the. the end of February when they started tapping the trees. Now it's generally the end of January, the first day of February when they're tapping the trees. So they tap the trees, they use a pressure system to actually draw sap up the tree, right? And then out the tap.
Sometimes you'll see the old fashioned way with buckets hanging off trees, but you can also drive around the woods around us and it looks like a brewery because there's a million trees connected by a million bits of little plastic piping.
So people making maple syrup now have Barrels and barrels and gallons and gallons of maple sap, and there's a high sugar content, but to make it easier to boil it down, most people use a reverse osmosis system that takes pressure in it to get the water content out, reduces the sugar content, makes it easier to boil down.
As a general rule, so just as a general rule, the sap that is pulled out of the trees is stronger, or more maple syrupy, let's just say. Earlier in the year, and it gets watery as it goes on. So as the season extends, they have to boil it down more and more. That's a general rule. It doesn't always work out that way. And where we live in our part of England, we see them start and stop sugaring. So they'll start.
Getting the sap out, and then we'll get a really bad cold snap and they'll quit because the sap stops running, and then we'll get a lot of rain, and they'll quit sometimes because it's too watery, and they want that rain to kind of flush through. There's all kinds of reasons why they start And they stop it in general. The early SAP is considered primo. And if you go to certain producers, they're very proud of offering you the first week's run and that kind of stuff.
And it's because many people believe that there is a milder, mellower flavor early in the run.
Why would you want something mild when you can have a good, lovely, strong maple flavor? It
depends on what you want. Not everybody wants the same thing. Now, if you don't know, maple syrup comes in all kinds of grades, and there's Canadian differences, there's U. S. differences, and even there are some producer differences because this is weakly enforced, not strongly enforced. But you should just look at the color of the syrup. In general, the darker it is, the more molasses like and the more It's going to get I tend to like very dark maple syrup.
You can get even ones that are so dark, they're supposedly just for cooking. It used
to be called grade B. I'm not sure what they call those now. And
there's different Canadian labelings and US labels. I don't like it that far. But I, Always with the dark stuff
and in general, no matter what color it is, the sugar content is going to be at about 66 percent which is 66 bricks degrees B. R. I. X. And it will take on average 40 liters of sap to make one leader. Of maple syrup. Yeah. So
thi this is how you know it's so expensive. 'cause you do know maple syrup is expensive and a lot of people, I wanna go back to this light and dark thing 'cause I don't wanna put anybody down. A lot of people like the light syrup because they like it for pancakes and waffles and they prefer that light tasting syrup on it. I just like big flavoring. Yeah, we do. So that's my thing. But you may not know this but, well, maple trees are storied in terms of of syrup production. There are a lot.
of other trees that can be sugared beyond maple trees. And in fact, there are people who sugar these trees. And before Bruce launches into this, I want to say that years ago, when there was still Gourmet Magazine and it still ran around, Bruce and I wrote about an Alaskan birch. Syrup producer.
Yeah, these people, uh, lived in Alaska and they had a huge, uh, stand of birch trees that they tapped. They tapped maple as well, and they would, you know, some people don't like the taste of birch. Mark and I are actually gonna taste it here live during this podcast. Um, so they, you know, Because people sometimes think it's bitter, they blend it with maple, but you could buy pure birch syrup.
And the one we're actually going to taste today, we got on a recent trip to Quebec, there was a producer there that Eskoumiak, and they have all sorts of grades and beautiful maple syrups and a very, limited supply of birch
and a very expensive supply of birch syrup. This bottle that set us back a little bit to buy a bottle of birch syrup. It's really labor intensive because birch trees, you can tell they've got these thin trunks, they don't produce as much as maple trees and what they produce is often much more watery than what maple trees produce
to get the flavor. of that caramelized birch sugar, you've got to boil down a hundred to one, not 40 to one, like you do with maple syrup. It's a hundred liters of birch sap to one liter. And that law,
not only do the birch trees produce a different flavor than maple syrup, that long boiling also brings on more. caramel notes because more of the sugars are transmogrifying as it boils, so it's going to take on a more molasses quality to it. Maple syrup is, we think, is a delicacy and we have long loved maple syrup in our house and we love the darker flavors, as I've said, and we love the clean taste of it. So we've got some here from where?
That's from Hidden Springs in Vermont, maple syrup, and I just tasted it and handed Mark the shot glass. Wow. And. The flavor is not just sweet. It's fruity. It actually has a stone fruit quality that I like. These people in Hidden Springs get a leaf rot that happens on their property. Yeah, it's a leaf mold rot. That's a mold that gets down into the roots and it kills them. It gives it a spectacular flavor, and it's mellow, and it's fruity, as opposed to the Burt syrup.
Now, we do have that bottle of Escomiak Burt syrup from Quebec, and I'm looking at the color, and it actually looks like molasses. And
tar. It looks like
Worcestershire sauce. And
it, when Bruce is swirling the glass around, and it's staining the inside of the glass a dark color. And I'm going to taste it. As he swirls it around. And this stuff is really, really good.
really a big flavor. Wow. I am getting a mouthful of intense vanilla. Oh wow. Oh, and sour. There's a sour quality that is so fabulous hour.
And it, it is a huge flavor that when I'm smelling and tasting right now, it's just the forest. It has this, Uh, the smell of damp forest smell to it, but it's really sweet. It's super sweet, but
yet sour at the same time. Crazy, sour, almost like a sucking candy that you had as kids that were like the crown royal sour cherries, sour lemons. They were sweet, but they made you pucker. I can imagine. A little bit of this in a margarita to give it that sour edge, but also a little sweetness would also give it a beautiful color.
It makes, let me just say, and again, we're not sponsored by anybody. So this doesn't go to anybody's credit, but a purchaser makes a really interesting holiday gift. And if you want to try it out and give it to someone as a holiday gift, I would suggest that you don't go for the pure stuff, but you go for the stuff that's cut with maple syrup, because it's going to be more mainstream tasting.
If you go for what we just tasted, which is the, uh, the real hundred percent Burt syrup, again, super damp wood smell taste like, uh, it's got a kind of running river brook through mossy ledge taste. It's got a sour edge. Imagine
eating some sour edge. sour berries right off a bush in the woods, and then you take a bite of some bread and it's sweet, but it's sour,
fabulous. It's, it's birch syrup is, is a, is a labor of love. It's super intensive to create it. Uh, when we spoke to these Alaskan producers years ago for gourmet, it was just amazing how much work they had to put in to create their birch syrup. But there are more than just birch syrup. There
is something really special, black walnut tree syrup. Now you have to be careful when you're shopping for this because there's a lot of bottles out there labeled black walnut syrup. And all those tend to be our corn syrup and sugar syrups with black walnuts added or black walnut extract added to them. And they're delicious, but you have the flavor of the walnut. not the flavor of the tree. Now, there are some people actually boiling down black walnut tree sap into syrup.
Takes about 50 liters of that sap. Hard to find. If you're going to look for it, look for it in the spring. Look for it in February or March. We were lucky enough to get some last year that we still have. It's like birch syrup in its color. It's very dark. It's very viscous. Um, the flavors are a little different, and I'm going to give it a try.
It's, it's, uh, I should just tell you, but the black walnut syrup, the, the nutty, earthy flavors, and it's got really strong, think wet soil flavors. With butterscotch. With, yeah, like butterscotch in my sauce. But the sweet is way down on it. It is not. as sweet, by any stretch of the imagination, as birch syrup or, of course, maple syrup, which is super sweet.
And the thing about this is it doesn't taste like nuts. So you expect, well, it's black walnut, it's black walnut trees. So we're getting the flavor of the forest, not a flavor of the nuts. And I
should tell you, just, just as a point of contention or a point of information, that I think birch syrup and, uh, and black walnut syrup. And we'll talk about one other syrup in a minute. These tree syrups are much more condiments. They're drizzles. You can drizzle them on, let's say, roasted Brussels sprouts. You can drizzle them on apple cake, but they are less. Uh, main thing like pancake
syrup. Don't pour them on your French toast.
You don't want a plate full of these things. They're very strong. The place that we found this birch syrup in Canada, they were using it as part of their cocktail program. So they were putting a little bit of birch syrup in bourbon drinks and that kind of thing as part of their cocktail program. Again, that's more how it's used. You wouldn't want to eat tablespoons. Yeah, I
think Mark's right. Think about it like condiments. And so what's the last one? So
The last one is the rarest of them all, and it is beech syrup. And this one is really rare because of two problems. One, the number of beech trees that can produce this syrup. But two, because North America has been hit by a beech tree blight. It's a root of the problem. Blight that has hit beach trees and our beach trees, even here in New England on our property, our beach trees are dying like crazy. So this one's hard because it's hard to find because again, beaches are rare to sugar.
The ones that can be sugared are rare and two, they're dying out.
Yeah. The most likely place you'll find beach syrup if you're looking to buy it as a place like Etsy where you have people who are pulling this stuff off their own property and boiling it down.
If I were to go to here, if I were to take
Marcus tasting the beach up, it's lighter in color than the other two. It's definitely lighter. And it's not
as sour. Um, the the birch syrup and especially the black walnut syrup all verge away from sweet. Beach syrup is much more like dried fruit like prunes. Think dried apricots. Think raisins like a
good Armagnac.
Yeah, think about it in that way. It's not nearly as viscous as the maybe even as maple syrup.
No, and it's not as dark as birch either,
right? I have this feeling and I don't know the research to this, but I have this feeling.
Feeling that the sap is very watery and this is about as good as they can get it towards syrup without it burning There's this tipping point Uh in which you can tip over and get burned flavors into the syrup and all producers watch very carefully Uh against this I should tell you a little story while we're here sitting on syrup about years ago I mean 20 years ago bruce and I decided to take a long weekend away.
We were living in new york city And we drove way up into Quebec, rural Quebec, not Montreal and not Quebec City, but rural Quebec. So we're in rural Quebec at a really nice hotel, but it's the dead of winter and there's not anything to do, but they are starting to sugar around us. So there's guys and they're making syrup, right? And we pull up and we asked if we can see the evaporator and watch them work.
And of course, they're happy to see us because gosh, who comes by these lonely icy roads in the middle of the winter, eh? And so they invite us inside, and they're boiling
down this giant vat of sap to create syrup, and they're bottling it, which is all fine and good. Except, here's the funny part of the story. I guess funny. Um, they're cooking their lunch in the boiling sap, which means, There are hot dogs floating around in that boiling sap, which they're eating. And I thought to myself, I wonder if people who are kosher know that Kosher? What if you're
vegetarian?
This syrup had hot dogs floating around in it.
Yeah, and I didn't check to see if their bottles were labeled kosher. I don't remember. But Yeah, so you kind of want to be aware of these things, that if you open a bottle of maple syrup and it has sort of a smoky, piggy flavor, you know, those guys may have been cooking their lunch in it, too.
Yeah, I know. It was just, we were both so shocked. I have
to say, they gave us one that was delicious. Yeah, well, it was. The hot
dog cooked in maple syrup was delicious, but it was just really crazy. I can remember standing there staring at it, thinking, I wonder if Consumers know there's a hot dog floating around in this maple stuff. And yes, all the pathogens are going to be killed off in this long, long, long, long boil. And listen, all the flavors are going to be killed off too. But it's still a question of who knows what about what's being produced. You know, what can I tell you?
I, nobody really knows how these things get produced. Do they, without a billion inspectors, which there are not, well, that's our whole take on syrups. If you're interested in more of this, again, I can tell you to, if you sign up for our newsletter. We'll be sending you some links to certain producers. You can check them out yourself.
And also you can do a Google search and look around on your own, but I've got some favorites and I'll send them to you before we get to the last part of our podcast. Let me say that it's always great to have you along. And we thank you very much for being a part of this journey into food and cooking
¶ What's making us happy in food this week: whitefish salad and beef daube.
with us. Okay. Up as always at the end, what's making us happy. in Food This Week.
Whitefish salad has made me happy many times over the years, and I've, I've been buying whitefish like crazy on smoked, smoked freshwater fish, and you buy it in chunks. I won't buy prepared whitefish salad. That is disgusting. I'm going to make it myself. So I buy a chunk of whitefish, peel that golden skin off, you pull the meat off, you throw it in a food processor, you add Mayonnaise, more mayonnaise, more mayonnaise, and a little sweet pickle. Thereby
disavowing the myth that Jews don't eat mayonnaise, but do go on.
Jews just don't put mayonnaise on a pastrami sandwich. Well, that's disgusting.
Well.
Do go on. And then you were it up the fish with the mayonnaise and a little sweet pickle relish. I've been eating it for days. It is my favorite tree, but you have to eat it with pickled jalapeno slices. And it's the only
good way. That's our house is we eat white fish salad with pickled jalapeno slices. It's a thing. Okay. What's making me happy in food this week is buff bourguignon. And it's funny I say this because Bruce has, uh, for a long time when he first met me, he was kind of this master of Dolby, actually dubbed the buff, not buff bourguignon, but okay. Um, if you're going to get technical, but he was this master of this Provencal beef stew.
And over the years he's Um, found ways to cheat it and cheat it and cheat it. I got lazy. I don't begrudge him this. I get lazy. But essentially in the last couple of years, he's been making beef stew and calling it Dub Duboof, which is not true. So this last weekend we had, we can guess in and I was like, can you actually go back to the original real way you make Dub Duboof? And he did. And it was worth All of the possible effort.
It involved two bottles of wine in the stew that were one for marinating, right, and then one in the stew, or two for marinating. Which was it? It
was two for marinating and they both went in. Okay,
and then
you know, you marinate
this with
what? Oh, fresh carrots and celery and garlic and onions and thyme and sage and allspice berries and peppercorns. So here's the thing, you take it out and then you brown bacon and you brown the meat and you put all the vegetables in and then halfway through cooking. You take the meat out, strain those vegetables, because now they're spent. Put the meat back in with the sauce, with sautéed mushrooms, olives, and prunes.
And pancetta.
And pancetta, and two more hours.
Yeah, and it was so rich and satisfying. It was perfect, Dom Dubuff. I told him he's not, uh, I'm not allowed to call anything else dub dub dub. He's free to make beef stew any time he wants, but it's not dub dub dub. This is the real thing. And it made me very happy through this week. So that's the podcast. Thanks for being a part, as I said, with us. Thanks for being along in this journey, and I hope that you expand your syrup repertoire.
Every week we tell you what's making us happy in Facebook page. Facebook group, Cooking with Bruce and Mark. So go there and tell us what is making you happy in food this week. Cause we want to know here at Cooking with Bruce and Mark.