Welcome to New Jersey, known around the world for Tony Soprano, Turnpike tolls, chemical plants, and ... maple syrup? If a university in the southern part of the state has its way, the sticky sweet brown stuff you put on your pancakes might one day come from New Jersey. It's part of an effort to use a species of maple tree common to southern New Jersey that has only half as much sugar as the maples of Vermont, the nation's maple syrup capital.
Backed by $1 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Stockton University is in its fourth year of producing syrup from the 300 acres of maples surrounding it. 'You should never tell a New Jerseyan, ‘It can’t be done,’ because we live for the challenge,' said Judith Vogel, a mathematics professor and director of the Stockton Maple Project.
Coming straight out of the tree, the sap tastes like water. Only after it is cooked in a wood-fired device called an evaporator does the sugar content soar. Then the color turns brown, in the same way that a white marshmallow turns brown near the heat of a campfire. So far this year Stockton has collected over 4,000 gallons of sap from 400 trees, and expects to produce 55 gallons of syrup, 'which would be a great year for us down here in south Jersey,' Hegarty said.