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Stretching a season: Maple Hill Farm taffy

4 mins read
The marble slab sits quietly this year, but will likely be used again next year for cooling syrup into taffy.

FARMINGTON – It’s been a couple of years since the Tracy family has made taffy. The process requires several pairs of hands, and shoulders that are up to speed for the task, not to mention specific weather conditions that can be hard to come by during mud season.

“There can’t be too much moisture in the air. We couldn’t have done it today,” Bruce Tracy said, referencing the drizzly Friday of Maine Maple Sunday weekend.

The Tracys have been making taffy using their maple syrup since the 1970s, though Bruce’s father Albion learned long before that from the former owners of Maple Hill Farm. They still use the same technique and tools that Albion and the Titcomb family used more than 50 years ago- a giant slab of marble and a steel hook for pulling. The process has stayed true to tradition too, and nobody knows the details other than Bruce, his brother, and his mother, Donna.

The taffy pulling hook that has hung at Maple Hill Farm for more than 50 years.

“The secret’s in myself,” Bruce said.

Due to health issues, Donna hasn’t been able to participate in several years, another reason the Tracys haven’t made it for a while.

Maple Hill Farm isn’t the only producer of taffy, but they’re the only ones in the state that use traditional methods, and the only ones that make real, bonafide taffy- stretched and pulled to that perfect taffy softness. Many producers simply offer “syrup on snow,” which is exactly what it sounds like. The warm syrup hardens as it hits the cold snow, making a lollipop-esque treat. But Maple Hill taffy is different.

“The first run of sap is always the best for taffy. We heat it up to a certain degree, then pour it onto the cold marble. You wait til’ a certain point, when you can put a finger in it and it doesn’t fill in, then you put it on the hook,” Bruce explained.

The taffy is pulled and stretched, then measured on a benchmark and cut and boxed.

“A lot of people have had it. People used to come to me and say ‘Bruce, you got any candy today?'”

Bruce said he isn’t concerned about the tradition fading. The family will likely get back to making it next year, when his shoulder has had time to heal and when his mother can participate again.

Until then, the Tracys will continue to offer their syrup to the public and will be celebrating Maine Maple Sunday with an open sap house and a variety of maple treats.

Maple Hill Farm can be followed on Facebook by clicking here.

Bruce Tracy works in the sap house several years ago on Maine Maple Sunday.
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