* * Black walnut syrup, anyone?

There’s nothing better than real maple syrup on a tall stack of blueberry pancakes. But have you ever thought of black walnut syrup? It turns out that several trees generate the right type of sugar water to make edible syrup.

Tom Hammett is a Virginia Tech forestry professor who has been studying the syrup industry and looking for ways to build the market and interest in alternative syrups. I spoke with him in his 100+ year old home in Ellett Valley, surrounded by wooden shelves, floors, and doors.

“Through experimentation and research around here,” Tom said, “the idea of making syrup from other trees has emerged. Birch is the most explored and most popular alternative to maple, especially north of here in colder regions of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine.”

Tom works in the College of Natural Resources and the Environment. He says, “That’s important because we’re trying to connect the use of land with people. We have a close association with the forests here. That’s the focus of my work, the relationship between people and the land to include products that don’t just involve chopping down trees. My trail led to maple syrup because of that.

“We’re not against cutting down trees. The forests to be managed need some harvesting. They’ll be less productive to us if not managed. When you think about the forest, you need to think more than just trees. You need to think for example about the watersheds, and the ability of forests to filter rainwater. You need to think about recreation. You need to think about wildlife. There are hundreds of other products, like medicinal plants, dietary supplements, fibers, decorative plants like Christmas trees, and food like fruits and nuts.

“Then there’s wind protection. Water erosion control. I mentioned wildlife, for viewing and food.

“Managing the forest ecosystem is more than just fuel firewood and timber. Traditional forest management is just for timber, but it’s more than that.

“Any tree that has a sap with a high sugar content is a candidate for syrup. Maple is one of the highest and is the most successful. Here in Virginia we’re looking at sweet gum. We have more sweet gum east and south of here. Red maple is also possible, but has less sugar than sugar maple.

“Traditionally even in this area were sugar maple boils, where local people would bring their sap to a central location for a community event.”

Tom said our forests are doing well around here. Forests have recovered from all the clear-cutting early in the 20^th Century and before. He has worked extensively internationally as well, perhaps a half-dozen countries in the last five years. The rest of the world views forests, in many cases, as a closer relationship. People go into the woods more often to collect firewood, hunt animals or mushrooms. One third of the world’s people have contact with the forests every day; that’s over 2,000,000,000 people! They get much of their food protein from the forests. Forests are resilient, we depend upon them whether we interact with them or not, and we can use the forests indefinitely if we do so sustainably.

What’s interesting about syrup is that it has only one ingredient: sap. Nothing else is added. You take 40 gallons of sap and boil off 39 gallons of water and what’s left is the syrup.

Tom continued, “Consumers are not used to the taste of these other syrups. In northern states, people are accustomed to birch syrup. People are making sycamore syrup and black walnut syrup. I would say that of the alternative syrups, birch and black walnut have the most potential. Around here, most people are accustomed to corn syrup based products that mimic maple syrup. They are not true maple syrups. They have the maple taste, although artificial.

“Now, these others are boutique items, mostly for high-end restaurants, where chefs are always looking for new tastes. Black walnut grows prolifically around here. The trees grow fast, mostly near forest and field edges. The timber is desirable. The husks of the walnut can be used for things like tea and livestock bedding. It’s well identified and widespread around here.

“We are now getting potential producers and consumers interested. These need to happen coincidentally. It will be expensive at first, but the greater the demand the lower the price will go. The price now is around $150 per gallon.

“Black walnut has a distinguished taste, but very good. It has a darker color. Sycamore syrup has a lighter color and less intensity. Consumers farther south like darker syrups like molasses. To the north, they like lighter colors.

“They all have high nutritional value. They’re natural products, delicious. You don’t have to kill the tree to obtain them. What’s not to like?”