You know you can get that at Hy-Vee, right?

By David Hajoglou and Joe Tadie
Guest Writers

This year, a group of students, faculty and staff made maple syrup on campus in the traditional (and very slow) way. We started gathering wood for the boiling process in November. In March we tapped five maple trees and started collecting sap in one-gallon containers.

During this time we built the furnace, split the wood and collected 12 gallons of sap. In a dilapidated shack in the bluffs, it took 10 students 12 days to boil down the sap into one quart of syrup. This quart of syrup took a total of 61 man hours to produce.

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If we paid the laborers the Federal Minimum Wage ($6.55/hr), that quart of syrup would be worth $400. What this means is that Hall Director Brendan Dolan, who paid $35 for this quart of syrup at the Taylor Richmond Benefit Auction, will be receiving a bill for the remainder!

In the years I have been making my own maple syrup, curious onlookers, noticing the onerous character of this process, ask a variety of questions, ranging from “what are you doing with that hatchet?” to “how much sap does it take to make a gallon of syrup?” or “how long does it take?” These question are easy to answer: 1) trying not to cut myself; 2) it takes 40 gallons of sap for one gallon of syrup; 3) a long, long time. The question I find very difficult to answer is the inevitable question, “You know you can just get maple syrup at Hy-Vee right?”

When I hear such a question, I realize that I too have developed a lot of questions as a result of my involvement in this process. My questions are less rhetorical and more about food sources, especially in their agricultural, economic and ecologic implications. Here are a few I would ask in return:

Where does the maple syrup at Hy-Vee come from?
Does the purchase benefit Minnesota (or other US) producers or Canadian producers? What kind of energy inputs are required for their processes? How do these operations dispose of their waste products?

Because I practice maple syrup making in the way that I do, I can answer ALL of these questions. I can take you directly to the five maple trees that are the origin of my maple syrup. I am not contributing to an international trade deficit (one may even say that I am lessening the burden on the international trade deficit by consuming my own syrup). My energy inputs are both renewable and local. All of my waste products (excepting the smoke from the fire) are recyclable and are, in fact, recycled.

One goal of our maple syrup project was to educate ourselves about the nature of food production. We now understand a fraction of the complex process that is required to make food. My hope is to get people to think critically about where their food comes from. Making food yourself may have some real benefits over buying it at the store. Finally, to answer all of those perplexed spectators, I know I can get it at Hy-Vee, and do you know you can make it yourself at home?