Orrington maple festival on tap

ORRINGTON – The Curran Homestead Living History and Farm Museum will hold its Maple Festival and Irish Celebration 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, March 17. The cost for members to attend the event is $5, $3 children under 12; and for others, $7, $5 children under 12. The fee covers the cost of admission and refreshments.

The museum, located at 372 Fields Pond Road, is staffed by members and volunteers who are committed to the restoration of the Curran farm and the creation of a living history museum as an educational center to preserve the turn-of-the-20th-century culture, values, agricultural heritage and lifestyle of rural Maine.

Highlights of the event are live Irish music, a maple sap-to-sugar making demonstration and the tasting of foods made from maple sugar and syrup, as well as recipes from the early 1900s.

John Mugnai, president of the museum’s board of directors, said the 11th annual spring event would be the best so far. The late winter season, he said, is when it’s time to harvest what may be Maine’s oldest crop – maple sap. And at this time of year, when people have been cooped up during the cold months, they need a party.

Mainers have been tapping trees, boiling sap and sweetening their pancakes, biscuits, doughnuts, hams and baked beans with maple syrup for several centuries.

Those who attend the celebration will have the opportunity to taste maple-sweetened foods such as baked beans and ginger ice cream.

Information on how to tap trees, how to make maple syrup and how to cook with maple syrup will be available.

The sap-to-syrup demonstrations, under the direction of Bob Croce and Jill Martel, is one of the most popular events at the festival. It takes place in the sugar shack around a wood stove where the sap is boiled. It’s a favorite place to gather and swap stories of the “olden days.”

Cathy Martinage will oversee the foods visitors may sample at noon. The menu includes Irish stew, biscuits, cole slaw, hot chocolate and coffee.

Jerry Hughes and The Late Edition will sing Irish songs attendees can sing along with.

Other activities include a coloring contest for children, guided tours of the museum and listening to storyteller Carroll Adams. The museum gift shop will be available.

To learn more about the museum and the celebration, call Irv Marsters at 945-9311.