Maple Syrup Price Beyond Reasonable

My earliest ancestors from the 1300s lived among the maple trees, that is what the surname stands for. A 'Jawor' tree is a sycamore maple, and 'ski' means 'place of'.

So maybe that is why I love pancakes and of course the only real thing to put on them is maple syrup.

When I was a kid we had the Old Colony brand of maple syrup that you could buy at the Safeway supermarket. I can't recall what they charged for a bottle. Perhaps $2.50 or so back in the 1970s.

Then the prices went up in the 1980s and our family started buying the Old Tyme brand which is marketed as "artificial pancake syrup". It's just not the same thing.

The artificial stuff is thinner, and is surely cheaper. But there are some preservatives and other things in there that I'd rather not be eating.

In the 1990s when I moved out on my own I started to buy real maple syrup again, and the cost was around $3.00. Then in 1994 and again in 1998 the price jumped from $4.30 to $6. The justification for the price increase was that the maple syrup farmers in the province of Quecec had that ice storm and also it seems that the maple syrup farmers had, in their greed, wanted more of the dollars as income that came from selling it to the Federation des producteurs acericoles du Quebec (the marketing board).

Now, according to this news report from UPI, the farmers and/or the marketing board is at it again, claiming that there is some kind of "shortage" of maple syrup...And now they want $10 bucks for one bottle.

Oh, and by the way, Old Colony was purchased by Old Tyme, which is an American company, and the Old Colony brand was shut down.

Shades of Orwell's 1984 to come?