SC - French toast?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Huette von Ahrens wrote:
> 
> Florida????  I doubt very much if Hawkins found Sugar
> Maples in Florida. They are a native of Eastern North
> America.  The Sugar Maple tree needs a long freeze in
> order to produce the proper sap.  I know of no place
> in Florida where the climate is cold enough to produce
> maple sap. Which is why Vermont, Wisconsin and Quebec
> are the leading producers of Maple Syrup.

Close. Quebec, Vermont, New York, Ontario are the big four, apparently.
According to the Ontario Maple Sugar Producers Board, or some such,
anyway. Interestingly enough, it's produced, according to these folks,
in four Canadian provinces and a dozen American states. While they do
mention West Virginia, they don't list Wisconsin as a major producer. Of
course these statistics could easily vary from year to year.

> As for maple syrup being period, it is not.  It is
> definitely post period.  The Native Americans did tap
> the trees during period, but they didn't appear to
> have shared the secret until the mid 17th century.

I wondered about the whole Florida thing, too. As I recall cane sugar
was in production in several parts of the Caribbean Basin as of the
sixteenth century; I wonder if the account referenced was of cane sugar
production? Another possibility, of course, is that the area we now call
Florida either had a different climate from its current state, or that
what was known as Florida then was a little different, on the map, from
the modern state. I seem to recall the Seminoles, for example, holding a
fairish chunk of the American South at one point. Maybe even West
Virginia, for all I know ;  ) .
 
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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