Meanings of Maple

About

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title

In Meanings of Maple, Michael A. Lange provides a cultural analysis of maple syrup making, known in Vermont as sugaring, to illustrate how maple syrup as both process and product is an aspect of cultural identity.

Readers will go deep into a Vermont sugar bush and its web of plastic tubes, mainline valves, and collection tanks. They will visit sugarhouses crammed with gas evaporators and reverse-osmosis machines. And they will witness encounters between sugar makers and the tourists eager to invest Vermont with mythological fantasies of rural simplicity.

So much more than a commodity study, Meanings of Maple frames a new approach for evaluating the broader implications of iconic foodways, and it will animate conversations in food studies for years to come.

Author

Michael A. Lange is a professor of anthropology and folklore at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. He is the author of Norwegian Scots: An Anthropological Interpretation of Viking-Scottish Identity in the Orkney Islands.

Reviews

“This thoughtful, engrossing text is an ethnographic exploration that ranges beyond a discussion of sugaring, as Vermonters call the extraction and processing of maple sap to produce maple syrup and sugar. Lange’s approach thoughtfully considers economics, environment, and cultural identity to present an interdiciplinary analysis of an often-fantasized but little-understood industry. … A fine addition to any academic institution that has programs in food science or cultural anthropology.”
Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.
—J. Cummings, Choice Reviews, August 2018

“Meanings of Maple encourages readers to contemplate how following a rural practice can open up a world of meaning.”
—Cheryl Morse, Vermont History, Winter/Spring 2019

“Meanings of Maple is a nicely written book about a unique food produced in an fascinating place.”
—Carole Counihan, American Anthropologist, September 2018

“As a dedicated, holistic cultural analysis of sugaring, Meanings of Maple will be especially impactful for a specific audience, particularly those interested in foodways, sugaring, or what it means to be a Vermonter. But Lange’s clarity makes this a particularly consumable read, and I hope, will encourage readers (whether in the field or outside of the field or in no field at all) to apply the approach Lange uses here and examine the traditional practices they encounter in their own lives.”
—Hannah Davis, Journal of American Folklore, 2019

Praise

“It’s about time maple syrup got the literary respect it deserves; the author has worked almost as hard to harvest his data as sugar makers work to gather March’s sap. Read it and you’ll never buy Aunt Jemima brand again!”
—Bill McKibben, author of Wandering Home

“Rooted in anthropology and Vermont, Mike Lange deftly taps the many-splendored meanings of maple as tree, forest, food, crop, money-maker, mark of identity, mode of existence, and much more. Blending his own deeply refined meditations with insights from a range of disciplines and — thanks to years of dedicated field research — eloquent quotations from veteran sugar makers, Lange stacks maple-suffused chapters like the finest flapjacks, offering provocative insights with consistent clarity until the last morsel. Foodies, foresters, and knowledge-hungry folks will want to eat up every page.”
—James P. Leary, author of Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatchers in the Lumberjack Era

Series

Food and Foodways, a series from the University of Arkansas Press, explores historical and contemporary issues in global food studies. We are committed to telling lesser known food stories and to representing a diverse set of voices. Our strength is works in the humanities and social sciences that use food as a lens to examine broader, social, cultural, environmental, ethical, and economic issues. In addition to scholarly books, we publish creative nonfiction that explores the sensory dimensions of consumption and celebrates food as evidence of human creativity and innovation.

Adoption

Adopted at: Binghamton University
Course: ENVI 382 Sweet Harvests: Bees and Maples
Course Description: Beekeeping and maple syrup production are two forms of specialized agricultural production that are growing in popularity across the U.S., and particularly in the Northeast. Building upon primary research conducted in the state of Maine, this course will explore these two practices across the Northeast, with particular focus in New York State. We will take an interdisciplinary approach, studying the history of production, the biological and ecological components, the embedded social and cultural meanings, and specifically climate change’s impacts on the present and future for beekeeping and maple syrup production. Course will include guest lectures and field trips.
Professor: Sara Hendrickson Velardi
Term: Spring 2021