Feast at the Sugar Shack

It's that time of year again, the nights are still cold with temperatures below freezing and the day is warmer. These are the perfect conditions for making maple syrup. In Quebec this is celebrated with great feasts and some good, down-home partying. This weekend my fiancé and I along with some family took a visit to the sugar shack, otherwise known as "La Cabane à Sucre".


Our visit to the Cabane à Sucre started with the traditional feast. This generally includes Quebecois Pea Soup, scrambled eggs, ham, sausage, bacon, oreille de Crisse (you can always count on wikipedia for a decent definition), baked beans, cretons and of course- all the real maple syrup you can eat, which you pour over everything. This might sound like breakfast, and essentially it is, but there's always dessert afterwards. At le Sous-Bois where we went this year dessert is buffet style and includes homemade donuts, pouding chomeur, pancakes, maple-sugar pie and grand-pères (essentially baked dough in maple syrup). Of course all of these items are perfect vehicles for more maple syrup. Below is a picture of the food from their website. I didn't take any pictures because there's no better way to destroy a camera than getting maple syrup all over it.







So, once you're done with this huge feast you go outside for Tir. This is roughly translated to maple taffy. Essentially what they do is heat up the maple syrup to further reduce it and then pour it on fresh snow. It hardens to a taffy-like consistency. You then roll it onto a popsicle stick and enjoy. It is perhaps the best reason for going to a cabane à sucre. So whatever you do, make sure the Cabane you visit has "tir a volonté" (all you can eat maple taffy).