Author: mjmadaio

I ate 3/4 of a bottle of ketchup the other night. I didn’t really mean to do it, it just kind of happened. Let’s face it, when someone goes out to happy hour and doesn’t get a real meal until about 11pm, ordering a sausage and cheese omelet and hash browns is one of the only acceptable choices. And what goes better with that than ketchup? Ok, so maybe not so much ketchup, but you get the idea: I really like ketchup.

Speaking of which, is there anything more obnoxious than ordering a ketchup-friendly meal and discovering that the restaurant does not have Heinz? Watery Hunt’s just doesn’t cut it! Once in Richmond, Virginia at a pizza place called Mary Angela’s (which, despite what I am about to tell you, has the best pizza in Richmond), the bottle of Heinz on our table had run out. I went up to the counter to get more, but quickly recoiled in horror as I watched the waitress fill up the friendly Heinz bottle with drivel from a big tub of HUNT’S! Utter devastation!

This happens more often than you think. Ever wonder why sometimes the Heinz flows right out of the bottle and other times it is difficult to get out? Because IT’S NOT ALWAYS HEINZ. Next time your ketchup comes out a little to easy, pay close attention the flavor… You are probably a victim of the Heinz Hoodwink.

When I was in 8th grade, my french class took a 5-day field trip up to Québec City in Canada. Letting a group of junior high school kids loose in a foreign country isn’t exactly the wisest idea, but that’s another story for another time.

One thing I will always remember from that trip was our visit to an authentic Canadian sugar shack, or “cabane à sucre“, which is basically a “farm” where maple syrup and other maple products are harvested. Many sugar shacks, however, have become tourist destinations where people go each spring (maple sap harvest time) to load up on sugar after a barren Canadian winter. The feast includes lots of pancakes and syrup, obviously, but also traditional sugar shack fare such as pea soup, baked beans, maple-cured ham, “oreilles de crisse” (fried strips of salt pork), omelettes, and maple-sweetened desserts like sugar pie, crepes and “grands-pères” (dumplings poached in maple syrup). And there’s plenty of syrup to go on each and every one of these delicacies.

Now, I have no memory of eating pea soup with maple syrup in 8th grade (although I must admit the idea of returning to do this seems intriguing), but I most certainly will never forget the one culinary delight that simply blew me away at first taste: Maple Butter. This delicious spread is made by cooking, cooling, then whipping pure maple syrup. It is best served on toast, but it can also be put on pancakes, french toast, etc. Yum!

So I purchased a small bottle of this maple butter from the sugar shack, and it was a huge hit at home. Problem was, the bottle was gone after about a week. No more maple butter! And, while this stuff is readily available in QC, it was pretty hard to come by in the US (unless you lived in Vermont). Years passed, and while I never had another chance to try maple butter, it still entered my thoughts from time to time.

(Get ready for another one of Mike’s “how great is the internet” stories)

So, the beauty of the internet is that, a few years ago, I was able to find maple butter from a Canadian e-commerce site. I have to admit it was not as good as that fresh butter I had right from the sugar shack years ago, it was pretty damn “sweet” to have maple butter back in my life. In recent years, I’ve seen it more and more often in specialty food stores and catalogs. Two years ago I was able to find a bottle in Williams-Sonoma, and just the other day I saw a jar in Whole Foods (although I did not buy it since a recent trip to Canada has a bottle of the real stuff in my fridge).

You can also get Maple Butter at Amazon.com (from Vermont) or from Canadian Maple Delights (From Canada). Note that I haven’t tried either of these brands.

If you like maple syrup, maple glazed salmon, or pretty much anything sweet, find a bottle of maple butter and give it a try. You won’t be disappointed. (And get to a sugar shack in QC if you ever have the opportunity!)