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Presents...
3 Check It Out 4 Attack of the Evil Junk Food 8 Tasting a Tree 10 10 Mouth-Watering Facts 12 The Fabulous Banana 13 Bananas Have a Science Secret 14 Puzzles 16 No More Couch Potato 23 The Very First Fast Food 24 Food Funnies 25 Max & Gracie 26 How About an Iguana Taco? 27 Fish Guts, Walnuts, and Tomatoes 28 Colored Mush 29 Gross but Good from Our Readers 30 Puzzle Solutions 2
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his bald eagle couldn’t be happier with its meal of raw fish. The otter with his meal of fish hanging out of his mouth seems to be enjoying his meal too. Imagine if someone offered this to you for lunch! You might say, “Gross! I’m not eating that!” With raw fish as an option, you might be quite happy with the healthy sandwich your mom made for you. Often, animals will eat anything. But what they prefer would most likely not sound too tasty to you. This issue is jam-packed with articles about foods that may sound gross, but wait. We can guarantee some of these odd combinations are things that you eat every week! Check it out inside. You decide. Is it Gross, Good, or Tasty? What food do you like that your friend thinks is gross? Write and tell us! We will publish the answers in a future issue.
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by Diane Winebar
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ow do you taste a maple tree? Do you lick the bark or chew the leaves? No! To taste a maple tree, you collect the sap from inside the tree.
The sap from some trees can be made into delicious syrup. Native Americans knew this. They taught “sugarmaking” to the Europeans who settled in North America centuries ago. But how does thin clear sap become thick golden-brown syrup? It all starts with the right kind of tree. Syrup can be made from the sap of different trees, but sugar maples are the perfect choice. These trees produce a lot of sweet sap, and the syrup made from this sap tastes very good. Other kinds of maples also have good sap for syrup. Now we know the best trees to use, but we need to know something else. Is it time to go sugaring? You see, sap needs cycles of cold and warm temperatures to get it moving up and down inside a tree. When sap is moving, it’s easy for people to get it out. Sugar maples grow mostly in eastern Canada and the eastern United States. In late winter and early spring, the temperatures there rise to above freezing during the day. Then they fall to below freezing at night. This freeze and thaw cycle causes sap to flow from the trees. It’s ideal sugaring climate!
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So, we have the right kind of tree, and the weather is telling us that the sap is running. It’s time to “tap” the trees! Here’s how it’s done. Step 1. A hole is drilled into the south-facing side of a tree. Sugarmakers know to drill the hole so that it slants slightly upward into the tree. Before power drills, people would just make a gash in the tree.
Sage drilling a
Step 2. Next, a spout, or spile, is gently hamhole into a tree mered into the hole. A long time ago, people used pieces of bark shaped like a trough, or they carved spiles out of wood. Some sugarmakers still use wooden spiles! Step 3. Now something is needed to collect the sticky liquid as it leaks out. Buckets with lids are hung from the spile hook. If there is no hook, a nail is pounded into the tree just above the hole. Then a bucket is hung from the nail. Step 4. When enough sap is collected, it’s boiled down in a pot until most of the water is cooked away. What’s left? A thick, sugary syrup! Many sugarmakers do this work outside over a wood fire or a gas grill.
Lupine tapping in a spile
Making real maple syrup is a slow process. It might take a few days to collect enough sap. About 20 gallons of sugar maple sap is needed to make a quart of syrup. That’s a lot of sap! Then it takes several hours for the sap to boil down. When the syrup is ready, it is strained to get rid of any dirt and then poured into bottles and jars. When the syrup has cooled, it’s ready to use! What could be better than delicious maple syrup straight from nature?
sap dripping into the bucket Delicious!
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