Dans les coulisses d’une cabane à sucre géante

What is a Quebec “cabane à sucre”?

Cabane à sucre translates as “sugar shack,” but in Quebec it’s a whole spring institution: a maple-grove cabin where sap is boiled into syrup, and where families pile in for temps des sucres meals of pea soup, fèves au lard, oreilles de crisse and tire sur la neige (warm syrup poured onto fresh snow). Schoolchildren get the day off; restaurants close to host trips.

In this clip, host Eric Arnaud visits Saint-Robert-de-Bellarmin, a town of 800 with a million tap-holes and one of Quebec’s largest cabanes à sucre. The Pépin brothers run 160,000 entailles and ship to 53 countries. Canada produces roughly 80% of the world’s maple syrup; Quebec produces roughly 90% of Canada’s.