Maple flavors sweeten US menusMaple flavors sweeten US menus

Nancy

There’s a long list of foods we Americans like to claim as our own. Mom’s apple pie is the prime example, along with other favorites, such as hamburgers or macaroni and cheese. But the truth is that most of our comfort-food classics originated elsewhere, usually in European kitchens. One notable exception, however, is maple syrup and its sweet companions, maple sugar and maple honey. They have roots that go deep into the colonial experience, as settlers learned from Native Americans how to tap the maple tree and extract its sap for a variety of uses. The resulting 
maple-inflected products have stood the test of time. While the flavor never goes out of fashion, there are periods like the present when chefs refocus on maple, celebrating its versatility and ratcheting up its use on menus. 



Maple in the morning. The popularity of maple syrup as a topping for pancakes and waffles — and its easy affinity for sausage, ham and bacon — have made it a breakfast staple, of course. Operators have been building on maple’s breakfast appeal with modern morning menu items. Einstein Bros Bagels’ limited-time-only Maple & Brown Sugar Oatmeal Bagel included rolled oats and raisins, a combination that’s both tasty and nutritious. Meat Cheese Bread in Portland, Ore., delivers a dramatic wake-up call with The Maple, in which maple-currant bread pudding is the carrier for sausage, spicy Cheddar cheese and fennel shavings. In the opposite corner of the country, OhNo Café in Portland, Maine, provides an equally innovative eye opener with its breakfast bagel sandwich that combines maple-glazed prosciutto with Vermont Cheddar and a dash of hot sauce. And at aptly named Syrup in Denver, where infused syrups are a signature, diners can start the day right with The Foster, featuring bananas sautéed in handcrafted maple-vanilla syrup.


Maple in the evening. Maple makes a smooth transition to dinner at Red Lobster, where it appears on the Wood-Fire Grill Menu. The Maple-Glazed Salmon and Shrimp is finished with a maple-cherry glaze, and the seafood-averse can enjoy the same flavor treatment on wood-grilled chicken breast. At George Martin’s Strip Steak, an independent restaurant in Great River, N.Y., Berkshire pork chops are maple-brined and served with roasted pears and a fresh cider reduction. Maple is also used in some creative cross-daypart offerings, like the Sugar-Dusted Maple Potato Doughnuts at Chicago’s West Town Tavern, a dessert item that taps into growing interest in artisanal doughnuts and is served with a whiskey-custard dipping sauce. Insiders at ChurchKey in Washington, D.C., order the house-made brioche doughnut. It’s glazed in savory maple-chicken jus, stuffed with chicken and bacon, and available by special request on Sundays from noon until night. 


Super in snacks. Snacks have become a major area of growth, and maple plays a role there, too. Last year, Denny’s made waves with a bacon-centric promotional menu that featured a Maple Bacon Sundae consisting of vanilla ice cream crowned with maple-flavored syrup and a sprinkling of diced hickory-smoked bacon. Eight-unit Magnolia Bakery uses a maple-and-cream-cheese combination as icing on its Pumpkin Cupcakes and the filling in its Whoopie Cookies. Maple even promotes school spirit and creates buzz at Brigham Young University, where multiple maple bars are reshaped to form an 18-inch Cougar Tail, the signature snack of the BYU Cougars
football team. BYU Dining Services reports selling a hefty 5,000 per game.


Delicious in drinks. Maple has become a bit of a breakout player in specialty cocktails around the country, too. At PDT in New York, the house Old Fashioned is newfangled with bacon-
infused bourbon and maple syrup. Bacon also infused vodka in the Baconcello Martini at Osteria Via Stato in Chicago, where it was mixed with artisanal maple syrup and topped with lime. And at Alembic in San Francisco, a promotional drink combined bourbon with maple-syrup gastrique, smoked apple-cider foam and fresh thyme.


Looking ahead, we’ll see more unexpected flavor combinations featuring maple, an ingredient that plays well with others. Condiments like maple mayonnaise, aïoli and mustard are appearing on menus around the country, and they represent the contemporary and creative evolution of a bona fide American classic.

Nancy Kruse, president of the Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta. E-mail her at [email protected].

PREVIOUSLY: The Kruse Report: Shell game