Monks make maple syrup the old-time way

MINNEAPOLIS - Sweat was sparkling just below the edge of Brother Walter Kieffer's fleece cap as he high-stepped through the snow in a maple forest at St. John's University, quickly drilling holes in one tree after another.

But 47 years after he first started helping coax hundreds of maples into sharing their sap for syrup, Kieffer described it as something more than a chore.

"It's a lot of, lot of work, but it's just something to get spring going in your blood," Kieffer said during a brief pause. "And it is in my blood. It's a ritual. And now we've got to go to work."

Tapping Day on a recent Saturday was the annual revival of the seasonal process of syrup-making that began at St. John's in 1942. Kieffer led a parade of more than 75 volunteer students and staff from St. John's and the St. John's Arboretum through the tapping routine. Monks at the abbey in Collegeville, Minn., used to tap as many as 3,000 trees each spring, but this year, with fewer monks eating fewer pancakes, the group tapped 800 trees in about two hours.

"The hardest thing to do is to keep up with him," Jean Lavigne, a St. John's assistant professor in environmental studies, said of Kieffer, 62.

Over the next several weeks, Kieffer and the crews will repeatedly collect the sap buckets and dump the sap into 55-gallon drums. The sap will be hauled to the sugar shack, where it will be circulated and cooked in large pans over heat high enough to evaporate 200 gallons of water an hour. About 40 gallons of sap yield one gallon of syrup. Each tap, Kieffer said, produces about 10 gallons of sap.

Many large-scale syrup operations use systems of pumps and hoses to suck sap from the trees and move it to holding tanks. At St. John's, the only mechanical aids appear to be an old John Deere tractor for hauling supplies, and Kieffer's hole-driller, a 40-year-old chain saw modified with a 7/16-inch drill bit running out the side of the engine. On Tapping Day, only minutes after spikes were hammered into the trees, droplets of sap were already working their way to the lip of each spike. Each falling drop struck the bottom of its bucket like a gentle mallet, a drumbeat for spring.

There's no way to predict what kind of syruping season this will be. The recent warm weather has slowed the sap run a bit, said Sarah Gainey, environmental education coordinator for the St. John's Arboretum. But the sap will be good for syrup until the trees start making leaves in several weeks.

The syrup won't be sold. What isn't used by the monks will be given to friends and supporters of St. John's, the abbey, and the arboretum, commemorating the Benedictine tradition of land stewardship, as well as spring itself.

"It's a gift to us, and it's something we can give away," Kieffer said.

Makes 4 servings

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3 pounds spareribs

1 cup maple syrup

1 tablespoon chili sauce

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 onion, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

Dash pepper

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1. Roast ribs on rack in roasting pan at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. Drain fat from pan and cut ribs into serving-sized portions. Place in 9-by-13-inch pan.

2. In a saucepan, combine maple syrup, chili sauce, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, onion, salt, dry mustard and pepper.

3. Pour over ribs and bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for 1 hour, basting occasionally and turning ribs after 30 minutes.

Per serving:

760 calories, 39 grams protein, 58 grams carbohydrates, 40 grams fat, 15 grams saturated fat, 526 milligrams sodium, 129 milligrams calcium, 160 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber.

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Makes at least 6 generous servings

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7 egg yolks

1 cup real maple syrup

Dash salt

2 cups heavy cream

Fancy cookies, for garnish

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This recipe requires a double boiler. If you don't have a double boiler, a good substitute is a metal bowl in a larger pot of simmering water.

1. In a double boiler - but not on the burner yet - whisk egg yolks lightly. Gradually whisk in maple syrup and salt.

2. Put double boiler on burner over medium heat. Cook maple syrup mixture until it has thickened and lightened in color, about 20 minutes, whisking frequently. Do not increase the heat or flecks of cooked egg will appear in the mixture (and you don't want that in the finished product).

3. When syrup mixture has thickened, remove the pot from the heat and cool mixture, either by transferring it to a bowl and refrigerating it, or by putting the pan on top of a bowl of ice cubes. As the mixture cools, stir occasionally to cool it faster. The syrup needs to be entirely cool before it is mixed with the whipped cream. (Can be made a day in advance to this point.)

4. Whip the cream until very stiff, and fold the cooled maple mixture into the whipped cream. Portion the finished mousse into serving dishes, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to serve. The dessert will hold at least 8 hours in the refrigerator. Garnish with a small cookie.

Per serving:

450 calories, 30 grams fat, 17 grams saturated fat, 103 milligrams sodium, 41 grams carbohydrates, 117 milligrams calcium, 5 grams protein, 330 milligrams cholesterol; no dietary fiber.

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