You have probably heard of chicken, cotton candy or corndogs on a stick, but can you picture maple syrup?
If you are oblivious to the makings of maple syrup, you might think that this is impossible, but at this year’s 67th annual Maple Festival in Somerset County it is almost as common as a corndog on a stick.
Festival Park’s activities include things other than odd ways to consume syrup like, touring the oldest structure in Meyersdale, visiting an old country store, watching blacksmith demonstrations and people can visit the sugaring shake where you can watch how they used to make maple syrup through processes such as spotza (maple syrup on a stick) and sugaring off.
“Spotza which is the old Indian word for syrup on the snow. So basically we boil syrup and then we serve it over crushed ice which makes it like a real soft like a taffy state to eat on a popsicle stick,” said Decker, “and then sugaring off basically is we boil the syrup again … and redo the syrup into sugar or turn it back in to make sugar cakes.”
This year’s festivities will include an all you can eat pancake breakfast, a car show, a parade, maple syrup on a stick and many more sugar coated events.
If anything making the trip to the festival is worth it to get a taste of real maple syrup. “Ours is pure. 100 percent maple syrup, no additives, no preservatives no nothing. What you’re getting in the store is your commercial grade with anything and everything mixed in,” said Susie Deck, president of the Maple Festival.
Mia Custer from Somerset Area Senior High School has been crowned this year’s Maple Queen and she will be at the parade on Saturday. The festival will run until 4 p.m. Sunday.
