Happy St. Patty's Day

A few years ago I was making pancakes and had no buttermilk, so looking in the fridge, blueberry yogurt was the closest substitute.  The blueberry juice and yellow cornmeal combined to make green, to the amusement of all.  We did a repeat of that for St. Patrick's day, and have ever since.

Today I had them with some just-made maple syrup from the backyard tree.




Some maple trivia:
In the early colonial era most maple was made into hard sugar, until white cane sugar became available (plus jugs that could hold syrup were expensive).

In pre-civil war era maple sugar had a resurgence in popularity as a protest against cane sugar which relied heavily on slave labor.

There's a French Canadian phrase for the not-so-real maple flavored pancake syrup that roughly translates to telephone pole syrup.

A lot of people who tap trees also drink the sap just as it comes from the tree, only about 2% as strong as standard syrup. There's also a company that sells it as seltzer.