Sugar shack
- Sugar shack redirects here. For the song by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs, see Sugar Shack.
A sugar house (also known as a sap house, sugar shack, sugar shanty, or "cabane à sucre") is a small cabin or shack where sap collected from sugar maple trees is boiled into maple syrup. It is typically located at or near a sugar bush, many of them also offering reception halls and outdoor activities open to the general public during certain months. Many of these activities include sleigh-riding, tours of the grounds, and eating maple toffee made in the house often in front of the clientele.
The reception halls cater to large groups offering many varied dishes complemented by maple syrup. These dishes range from ham, bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, pork rinds, and pancakes to many other breakfast type dishes. There are also specialties like homemade pickles, homemade breads, followed by desserts like sugar pie and maple taffy on the snow.[1]
During the spring when the maple syrup is flowing or running, and Easter, the families and guests gather in these sugar houses to celebrate, often delighting in foods cooked with maple syrup, some of the rarer ones being sausages cooked in maple syrup, or eggs poached in maple syrup.
Another interesting fact is that in most of these buildings the great room is furnished with long tables, so everyone just sits and enjoys the food in a buffet style or the servers bring food until you tell them to stop. It is a tradition from the Canadian province of Quebec, where most sugar houses are family-owned.[citation needed]
References
External links
- "Sugar house photos from the University of Vermont Library's Maple Research Collection", Published February 10, 2010, University of Vermont, Bailey/Howe Library, Special Collections.
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