There is an imp in the maple syrup bottle...

Oh glorious maple syrup! How I love thee! And yet...why do you call to me late at night begging me to press my lips to the bottle and suck at your glorious nectar like it was ambrosia from the teat of the gods? Why?! The calories...the pure sugar...and always late at night.

I think there is an imp inside the maple syrup bottle that preys on weak willed individuals like myself.

But damn, I loves the maple syrup y'all! It's always been a favorite of mine. (And yeah, yeah. No Canadian joke please!) Seriously though, I could eat maple syrup on just about anything. You know that moment in Elf when Will Ferrell pours it on his spaghetti? Well...let's just say I was tempted to try it myself. *bows head in shame*

What precisely is it about maple syrup? The mere mention of it is like foreplay for my tongue because my salivary glands start pumping out the juice and I have to refrain from drooling all over myself. It's sad.

I remember when my sister went on a school trip with her class to a local sugar shack in northern Ontario (my class didn't get to go, and I have held a burning anger toward that teacher ever since!). She brought back some of the glorious thick and viscous fresh maple syrup home and we heated it up and poured it out onto crisp snow outside and rolled it onto popsicle sticks like taffy. Then we ate it. Let me just say, this was probably the closest thing to orgasm I'd ever experienced from food at that tender age. The fact that I still remember it with vivid clarity has to tell you something. My one regret is that I never made it outside of Montreal while I lived there to hit one of the sugar shacks out in the Eastern townships. But I have made a vow to do this some day in the future!

Aside from maple syrup itself, I also love related maple products. Like maple sugar candy. Mmmmmm....I can just sit down with a box of these and go to my special place. *hint, if anyone is ever looking for a cheap but simple gift pour moi, this is it!*

But living in the United States had made me more aware of the fact that many people do not comprehend the sheer glory that is maple syrup. In fact, Americans seem to eat their pancakes with...dear lord I can hardly bear to say it...FAKE SYRUP! *makes gagging noises* And...what's even worse...is many of them LIKE this fake crap! (No offense to you personally Violet, I blame it totally on your upbringing not you) This was just sheer insanity to me. Plus, I do believe real maple syrup actually has less sugar than the fake crap, so you'd think people would go for it instead. But this isn't the case.

Whenever I go anywhere that serves breakfast, if I order pancakes I expressly ask whether they have real maple syrup or not. Nine times out of ten they don't. So I almost never order pancakes. If there's no real maple syrup I ain't wasting my time!

Now I realize maple syrup is more expensive, but without it the culinary experience is totally ruined. So I urge America, embrace the maple syrup and you will never go back to fake sugar syrup crap ever again! Take that Aunt Jemima!