“If you love regional food traditions and want to understand how a classic sweetener is made from scratch, this book is for you. It suits curious home cooks and food historians, but bakers looking for a quick volume of everyday dessert recipes will be disappointed.
📝 Description: Boiling Off: Maple Sugaring in Maine
In 1964 three cousins tapped three thousand sugar maples deep in the Maine woods. They called themselves Jackson Mountain Maple Farm. They faced bankruptcy, exhaustion, pests and rodents, and dreadful sugaring conditions, but Hodgkins survived and has been making Maine maple syrup commercially in Temple, Maine, for sixty-some years. Woven into the story of Jackson Mountain Maple Farm is the history of Maine sugaring, beginning in Farmington in 1781, when Stephen Titcomb boiled off the first official pure Maine maple syrup in a cast iron kettle. Boiling Off tracks the evolution of sugaring technology from Titcomb's kettle to reverse osmosis and heat exchangers; follows sap gathering techniques from buckets and oxen-drawn drays to plastic tubing and vacuum pumps; and records production in Maine from 8,000 gallons of maple syrup in 1985 to 709,000 gallons in 2017. The story describes the subtleties of syrup flavor, how it is properly graded, and the art of making award-winning maple syrup.
💎 Expert review
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Eatbook Family editorial team
Cookbook desk
Hodgkins provides a grounded account of sixty years in the maple industry, blending personal memoir with regional history. The narrative effectively tracks technological advancements and production volumes without becoming overly academic. However, readers seeking step-by-step instructions for making syrup at home will be disappointed. This is a historical record for enthusiasts of agricultural heritage, not a practical guide for beginners or those wanting immediate culinary results.
✓ EDITOR'S REVIEW
⭐ Reader reviews
The starting rating comes from the team Eatbook Family —
If you love regional food traditions and want to understand how a classic sweetener is made from scratch, this book is for you. It suits curious home cooks and food historians, but bakers looking for a quick volume of everyday dessert recipes will be disappointed.
Reader rating
4.4
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Eatbook Family editorial team
Hodgkins provides a grounded account of sixty years in the maple industry, blending personal memoir with regional history. The narrative effectively tracks technological advancements and production volumes without becoming overly academic. However, readers seeking step-by-step instructions for making syrup at home will be disappointed. This is a historical record for enthusiasts of agricultural heritage, not a practical guide for beginners or those wanting immediate culinary results.
❓ Frequently asked questions
This title focuses on the narrative history, production methods, and flavor grading of maple syrup rather than traditional kitchen baking recipes.
The book details historical evolution, technical milestones, and flavor subtleties through storytelling and industry production records rather than a visual instructional format.
📖 Who should read this
If you love regional food traditions and want to understand how a classic sweetener is made from scratch, this book is for you. It suits curious home cooks and food historians, but bakers looking for a quick volume of everyday dessert recipes will be disappointed.
📜 Historical context
Rooted in the rugged woods of Maine, this book explores the heritage of New England maple sugaring dating back to 1781. It traces how local producers evolved from primitive iron kettles and oxen-drawn buckets into modern operations, capturing the hard-earned craft of commercial syrup production.
