Time to turn in your hippie card, young man

[marydell]

The young hippie guy (ponytail, granola-ish clothes, a little body modding) who was bagging my stuff at the grocery noticed that the bottle for the 100% pure maple syrup was glass, not plastic.

guy: "huh, it's glass, I wonder why?"
me: "maybe that's to make it seem fancy, since it's the pure stuff."
guy: "is that better?"
me: "well, it is if your kid can't have the regular kind. I like the regular stuff better, but it's made of corn syrup and other stuff."
guy, looking puzzled: "then what is this made from?"
me: "trees."
guy: *looks incredulous*
me: "yeah, maple trees."
guy: "oh, wow. Wild!"

Comments

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

You can crush the stalks of maize to get a sweet syrup. Not as sweet or as thick as the juice you get from sugarcane. I've heard that referred to as "sorghum". Of course, I may be confused (not the first time).

This is the Wikipedia article (your link wouldn't come up for me):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_sorghum

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Sweet sorghum is a relative of maize, but not a variety of maize, as I understand it. So it sounds like maize stalks would be the poor man's sweet sorghum, which is itself the poor man's sugar cane.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. Especially given where I heard that, which was in eastern Kentucky.