[fireflash38]

Maple syrup is a big one. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been to even fancy breakfast restaurants and had real maple syrup.

Cracker barrel used to, decades ago now. It's all garbage corn syrup now. I'd rather not have syrup at all than that cloying, thick, gross stuff.

[barbs]

Heh, I thought of maple syrup as well. And I'm ashamed to say I prefer the fake stuff! Although it's likely because it's what I had as a child, so there's a strong nostalgia factor.

[nick__m]

What's the grade of the maple syrup you tried ? (the new grading system is stupid everything is grade A with a color name)

In my opinion,

The A golden is light and subtle, I don't know what it's for; it's the variety we sell in tourists, and to peoples that likes fancy bottles and higher prices!

The A amber is great as a condiment in small quantities, for pancakes it's the best.

The A dark is the best for cooking deserts.

And the A very dark is my favorite for cooking meats like ham and ribs.

So if you only tasted the A golden I can see why you would prefer the fake syrup if you were raised on that stuff. But I would be surprised if you prefer the fake stuff to the A dark.

[0xffff2]

I grew up with the fake stuff, and have lately done quite a bit of taste testing of the various grades of real stuff. Grade A golden is the only one with a distinct enough difference in flavor for me to care, and even then it's very much an acquired taste, not immediately and distinctly better. Given the stark price difference, my conclusion is that the maple syrup elitism is a silly hobby horse for people with too much money.

[nick__m]

There are 2 maple grove owner in my extended family (both are my uncles one on my father side and one on my mother side) so I never saw that as a luxury product and never had to acquire maple syrup at market price.

But I understand your point, if you grew on the fake stuff and considering how expensive maple syrup is, you have nothing to gain by training yourself to prefer the real stuff.

[lo_zamoyski]

This is where I would note that tastes can be deformed. It is possible, for various reasons, to acquire bad tastes (here, childhood nostalgia).

[mrguyorama]

>deformed

Jeesus. Very silly elitism here.

There's no such thing as an obvious "Perfect" taste. Everyone has different taste preferences. Some people legitimately prefer and like the thing you consider "lesser" for reasons like they literally experience it differently than you do and that experience is not as good for them.

People have dramatic differences in their tastes. Some people are far more sensitive to sour flavors. Some people have way less tolerance for bitter. Your diet will radically change how salty something tastes. Same for sweetness. Same for spicy.

I grew up eating homemade maple products from my Uncle's trees he tapped and cooked himself. I've had the real deal.

It's just not that good for most uses of "Sugar syrup" to me. A molasses cookie is tastier than a maple cookie to me. Maple syrup on a pancake will pollute the pleasant flavor of a literal cake I am eating for breakfast with all sorts of complicated tree resin compounds. I prefer a simple light caramel flavor in my sugar syrup to go on top of my cake that I am eating for breakfast. I want to taste the light and subtle flavors of butter and sweetness and a simple cake. I don't want the complexity of a good maple syrup.

Now when I make my ham, that's when I use a maple glaze. That's exactly when all the complexity shines, against the powerful savory ham flavor.

[SauntSolaire]

> There's no such thing as an obvious "Perfect" taste.

The person you're responding to never claimed there's such a thing as "Perfect taste"; they've only said there's such a thing as "bad taste" (which I would agree with)

[bethekidyouwant]

I refuse to believe this is true.

t.Quebec

[sciencejerk]

I grew up with fake Maple Syrup (high fructose corn syrup), so when I first tried REAL maple syrup as an adult, I preferred the fake, thick corn product over the genuine watery, ultra sweet tree product.

[hammock]

At a restaurant it’s hard because people use way too much and it’s expensive stuff. A solution could be tiny packaged packets of it, the way they do with butter (in part for much the same reason)

[bobbylarrybobby]

I was very dismayed to find that the single serve maple syrup packets that I thought existed are instead just more corn syrup, which cost 21¢ per 1.4oz packet, or 15¢/oz. Meanwhile a jug of maple syrup is 56¢/oz and single serve packets seem to be a bit more than a dollar per ounce.

[BiteCode_dev]

A Canadian friend brought me back 2 bottles of local maple syrup as a gift. Ok, I'm a pretentious Frenchman when it comes to food and I do think most North Americans have no idea how real food tastes.

But that stuff, I didn't know how it really tasted before trying the OG thing.

Globalisation gave us the illusion of experiencing the world.

[subscribed]

I think it's worse than that. It promotes race to the bottom.

I love strawberries, blueberries (bilberry variety) and tomatoes, but apart of the few times in the year when I can collect my own or visit a PYO farm I'm not eating them at all.

Every shop (small and huge alike) only sells the fake, hyper-accelerated garbage (sorry Spain and Morocco, but that stuff is just gross), or - in season - locally grown similarly tasteless but raised on BPA, PFAS, dioxins, flame retardants, etc[1]

I can't even buy the quality stuff. It's just not being sold, because people only buy and eat trash :(

[1] not exaggeration - fuck British farmers knowingly pouring poison on their fields and the corrupt UK governments[2] for openly permitting it, may they get impacted by it: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/16/uk-farml...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e5y85p488o

[short_sells_poo]

Living in London, I notice the same. Getting access to true quality produce is not even a question of money now, it's basically just impossible to get full stop. There are a few local shops in the more upmarket areas that survive on the fact that people are willing to pay the 2-3x premium over the prices at Waitrose.

Gone are the days when you could ask the grocer or farmer to give you a peach to taste. People got used to having 24/7/365 access to everything, and supermarkets optimized purely for looks instead of taste and nutrition, because you aren't allowed to taste anything there. The only thing you can go by is the looks. This means looks sell.

I'd hazard a guess the vast majority of brits don't even know what a proper strawberry tastes like, because the only thing they can buy are beautifully polished turds. Everything tastes watery and crap, or conversely just generic "sweet".

I wouldn't even blame farmers. Their life is hard enough. They are operating on razor thin margins in a very uncertain environment. The consumer (against their own interests) demands that they produce beautifully and cheap turds, so that's what they'll produce. And if you try to do the right thing, you simply run out of money because you can't compete with the turds at the supermarket.

I only have empirical evidence for this, but it got much worse since Brexit as well. The variety has gone down a lot, I see shelves routinely empty at supermarkets and they all seem to be focusing on the same ultraprocessed crap.

[subscribed]

I agree, farmers are not responsible for everything, but definitely for pouring the toxic sludge. That's their choice. Conscious, willful. I doubt they'd make a tea on the water leeching from the landfill so why do they think it's okay to use it on the fields? Nasty.

But I agree, most of the blame lies on the corrupt government (can't think of a better reason explaining why they sanction the above practice or why they gleefully ignore supermarkets role in the "cost of living crisis" - part of it being squeezing the farmers in the same way they squeeze the customers).

And i agree it's been much worse since Brexit - the customer has been conditioned to tolerate worse quality and choice for ever higher prices. Continuous approval to neonicotinoids use in our fields is telling as well.

Gross and saddening. I'm telling my kids to get their education and leave the UK. Being EU country citizens they might even study in some cleaner and saner place.

[gyanchawdhary]

You should try Natoora in Notting Hill or Daylesford. I live in Belgravia and am admittedly spoiled for choice .. the Harrods Food Hall has excellent seasonal and harder to find fruits, and Daylesford consistently has some of the best British produce I've come across... the one in Sloane street even has the best organic Alphanso Mangos from India.

As for Brexit, I actually think it's been a net positive.

[short_sells_poo]

You have to be joking, right? So you are saying that it's all fine, because we can just go to Harrods to get quality food?

Nevermind that I hate Harrods and that entire area with a passion. It's a tasteless, glitzy tourist trap.

My post was all about the fact that barring a tiny percentile of people who a) live in an affluent area and b) are willing to pay 2-3x the regular supermarket prices, you cannot get good quality food. And you say "ah it's simples, just go to the most egregiously flashy beacon of division between the rich and poor and you can get good fruit"

Thank you, I can still get good fruit at my local grocer in Wimbledon, because it charges 2-3x over the regular high street prices and there are people around who can pay this. Doesn't help someone living in Croydon and having to go to Tesco, does it now.

[psadauskas]

I visit Maui fairly regularly, and its the same thing with local "Maui Gold" pineapple. It is a completely different fruit from the Dole crap you buy in supermarkets on the mainland. Whenever I'm there I'll eat pineapples until my tongue burns, and when I'm home I don't eat it at all.

[kbrkbr]

But what happens here, let me point that out for completeness, is not a dark conspiracy. At least not on this level.

People go to the grocery store and buy the cheapest thing that does the trick, probably because they can't afford something else. Bills want to be payed.

[subscribed]

Partially agree, in case of Aldi/Asda/Lidl but mostly not.

They don't have a choice, they cannot encounter a good vegetables and fruits in the normal stores. They CANNOT, at least in the UK. It's that simple. Maybe during some events, as a curiosity.

Good quality vegetables are not available on the shelves in general. Maybe in some cases, yeah. Some. But generally not. Similarly with meat, although it's much easier here to find something decent.

The difference in taste and quality between the cheapest and most expensive fresh fruits and vegetables in the supermarkets is virtually none. If you don't believe me, you don't have to, I simply grew plenty of that as a kid and a teenager, I keep growing some, and the difference between the average garden-sourced (or PYO/small farm sourced) and the Aldi/M&S/Waitrose/Tesco is simply too big to describe, you'd have to try it.

So there's an illusion of choice between awful and bad - in that case I'm simply choosing imported (thanks to the landfill and manufacturing waste in our great British food chain). People who don't know, or don't care pick whatever looks the best.

Some buy the cheapest. Not everyone buys the cheapest - you can't seriously claim that in case of the expensive stores (Sainsbury's, M&S, Waitrose).

And then there's palate problem. If someone was raised on these garbage produce, they may even favour it over healthy, proper ones. Proper radish will have a bite to it. Proper tomato has a complex profile (and there's hundreds of varieties of that too), instead of how garden stores describe it being "tasty"....

Consumers have been dumbed down and trained into accepting inferior livestock feed as food, and thanks for that they can for example say with a straight face that they actually like or prefer Tesco white toast bread.

(they've been scammed)

[boscillator]

Huh, I've been to plenty of places were you could order it for an up charge and it came in it's own little bottle.

[tetris11]

the real stuff was arguably improved upon with the thicker replacement. I don't want wet pancakes.

[threetonesun]

As New Englander I feel it's important to note that there are, like olive oil, various grades of maple syrup. They changed the system but Grade B / Dark maple syrup is the best for pancakes and "thickness". If you want to make a sauce or cook with it, golden or amber are fine.

[brookst]

That grade switch was crazy. I spent decades learning grade B is what I wanted, now it’s grade A, and it’s still confusing me.

[threetonesun]

It's made Grade B more widely available though, because now it's just a light or dark choice like brown sugar, whereas before Grade B seemed somehow inferior. Before it was easy to assume Grade-A would be the most maple-y.

[phyzome]

Kind of sounds like you haven't had real maple syrup.

[tetris11]

I have canadian cousins and they send me the real stuff every year. It's just what you prefer.

Some people like a Rolex watch they can flash at parties. Others are happy with a cheap imitation with a nice form that they can wear daily

[phyzome]

Hmm, weird. I've not found real maple syrup to be too runny. (But then, I haven't had the fake stuff in decades... maybe they add a bunch of thickener to it.)