Mill Brook House News

Oscar Winners Anora and Conclave Have More in Common than You Might Think

We were rooting for Conclave to win Best Picture, but dark horse Anora, which we hadn’t yet seen by Oscar night, won instead.  On the surface they couldn’t be more different.  Staid Cardinals with closely held secrets vying to replace a dead Pope, trapped in a papal conclave until someone wins a two-thirds majority versus an almost pornographic film about sex workers, one of whom finds herself in a Cinderella dream turned nightmare.  Each won for Best Screenplay (Conclave for Adapted Screenplay) and, indeed, their scripts were tight and gripping.  Both stories feature a key character whose humility and humanity shines faintly at first but blossoms by the end into the “righteous man,” who succeeds where the less righteous fail: Mexican Archbishop Vincent Benitez in Conclave, who is elected Pope, and Igor in Anora, who by film’s end wins the heart of the eponymous heroine. 

Dissimilar as the settings in the two films are, all are claustrophobic.  Trapped within the Vatican, the Cardinals move from their living quarters to their dining hall to the antechamber in the Sistine Chapel where they vote, and back again.  The sex club where Anora works is itself a dead end, but the extensive search for the delinquent Ivan through the clubs and restaurants of Brighton Beach, an enclave dominated by Russian oligarchs and their allied mafiosi, evokes a world that cannot escape itself, not unlike the Vatican as portrayed in Conclave.  (The set for the Cardinals’ living quarters in the Domus Sanctae Marthae was deliberately designed to seem more “prison-like” than the actual building.)

Of course, there are key differences besides the content.  In Conclave we must be told everything, the past sins, ambitions, manipulations and ideologies of the Cardinals, as well as the astounding revelation with which the film ends.  By contrast Anora employs frenetic action sped by constant cutting, and we are told very little.  Few details fill in the backstories of Anora, Ivan, Igor and the others.  For the most part we are shown, rather than told of, Ivan’s shallowness, Anora’s heartbreak, and Igor’s longing.  (Admittedly, it is hard to convey much information with dialogue in which every other word is “fuck.”) 

But these tales are, ultimately, similar: men trapped in their own sins, ambitions, and prejudices, women trapped in sex work, an immigrant community trapped in its own limitations and corruption and the glimmer of humanity that moves through it all, creating some semblance of a moral universe in which good triumphs in the end.  Both films offer a message of hope for these trying times as well as the caveat that goodness pairs best with humility.

 

Maple Sugaring Along the Mohawk Trail

When nights are cold and daytime temperatures rise above freezing, sap starts to run, and buckets hang from maple trees all over rural New England. Visitors, eager for some diversion between ski season and summer, flock to sugarhouses to watch the evaporation process, buy maple products, and eat at sugarhouse restaurants.

Colonists first learned about the sweetness of maple sap from Native Americans, who collected it from V-shaped slashes they made on the trunks of maple trees, and the newcomers subsequently developed their own techniques for tapping trees and reducing the sap to syrup or sugar.  When England forbid trade with the West Indies in 1765, colonists looked to maple sugar to fill their sweet needs.

In earlier times, farmers with a substantial "sugar bush" set up sugar camps in the woods, and the whole family would move to the camp to help with the labor-intensive process of gathering and boiling sap.  So originated the one-week "winter vacation" still observed every February by New England schools, a custom non-natives find bizarre--who wants their kids home in February when they can't go outside to play?   What began as time off from school to work at a sugar camp is, today, an opportunity to visit a modern-day sugarhouse.

During the Civil War, cane sugar became scarce once again, and maple sugar, supplied to the troops and used at home, was considered the "patriotic" alternative to sugar produced in the South.  Metal buckets with lids, such as you see here, were developed to aid in collecting sap, and the development of the tin can in these years allowed syrup to be preserved, shipped, and used year round.

Today large sugaring operations use less quaint, time-saving tubing to collect sap, but small producers still use sap buckets, and many larger operations use buckets to collect sap from outlying trees.  A single farmer may tap the trees on many properties, paying his neighbors for sap in gallons of finished syrup.  The ratio of sap to syrup is 40:1--forty gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup.  To be tapped, trees need to be 10 inches in diameter, which means they need to be c. 40 years old.  Each tap hole will yield about 10 gallons of sap, which will reduce to 1 quart of syrup.

Maple syrup comes in four different grades, named by color: golden, amber, dark, and very dark.  The darker the color, the stronger the flavor.  Which is best depends on one's personal taste.  Each has the same proportion of maple to water, and the producer has no control over which grade each boil will produce, but darker syrup tends to come later in the season.  In addition to syrup, producers usually offer maple sugar, often made into candies, and maple cream.  A favorite at Western Massachusetts' many fall fairs is fried dough smeared with maple cream.   

In the 1960's, three Franklin County sugarhouses, Gray's in Ashfield, Davenport's and Gould's in Shelburne, began offering maple-syrup-laced breakfasts during the sugar season, an early foray into the now popular "agri-tourism."

Of the three, only Davenport Maple Farm, up Little Mohawk Rd. off Route 2, still offers breakfast during the sugar season. (See sugar shack restaurants)  Gould's has ceased all operations for the present.

Gould's Sugarhouse

The evaporator at rest

Gould's evaporator in action

Monitoring the syrup

 

While Canada, mainly Quebec, produces 80% of the world's maple syrup and Vermont leads the U.S. with around 1 million gallons, Massachusetts, ninth in the nation, produces about 60,000 gallons, worth 5-6 million dollars, and interest in this local industry is growing.  Eighty percent of our 300 plus producers are located west of I-91. Sales of Massachusetts syrup are mainly within the state.  For more information visit https://www.massmaple.org 

                           Syrup flows from the evaporator

Maple syrup production benefits the environment by preserving forests and woodlots, important habitat for birds and other animals.  By making commercial use of forested areas, sugaring saves them from other uses that might destroy the trees.  Sugaring preserves approximately 15,000 acres of open space in Massachusetts.  It also allows local dairy farmers to stay in business by giving them additional income.

In addition to being delicious, maple syrup is high in antioxidants, minerals, especially manganese, vitamins, especially Riboflavin (B2), and low in fructose.  For recipes that use maple syrup, visit https://www.millbrookhouserecipes.com/maple-recipes/                

Unfortunately, maple sugar production everywhere is is threatened by the invasion of the Asian longhorned beetle, which destroys hardwood trees, particularly maples.   It was  discovered in Worcester, MA, where 25,000 trees were destroyed to stop its spread.  Today officials urge people to keep an eye out for the pest and, most particularly, never to transport firewood from one location to another, but always to burn local wood.  

Maple syrup production is also threatened by climate change. As winters become warmer, the season is more erratic and the length of the sap run less dependable.  But thanks to new innovations--visitors are more likely these days to see tubing instead of buckets--maple syrup production in the Northeast is higher than it's ever been, and for now there is an abundant supply for local consumers and tourists to buy and enjoy.