The sap’s running and while it’s too early to tell what the maple season will be like this year, I can tell you that the pancakes at Gould’s Sugarhouse on Route 2 in Shelburne are fantastic no matter what’s happening up in the sugar bush. Our Saturday morning visit was the third for our daughter, Lily - an annual tradition we started when she was one month old - and the first for our 5-month-old, Oliver. Even though we got there at exactly 8:30 a.m. when they opened the doors, the wait was about an hour. Perfect timing is probably more like 8:15.

 The wait, however, is truly part of the experience of the New England sugarhouse pancake breakfast. It’s the only dining experience I know of where you can chat with real farmers doing real farm work in real time while you wait for your table. A friendly chat with the man working the evaporator about his firewood gave me some insight into his business.

There are two major external factors that determine the success of a maple crop, or of any crop, for that matter: the weather and the economy. Since the economy is bad, the local sawmills aren’t churning out as many boards, so there aren’t as many cast-off end pieces to burn. Luckily, though, last winter’s ice storm took down a bunch of hardwoods on the Gould property and they were able to split and season their own windfall crop of wood. Adding hardwood to the mix buys them more time to chew the fat with customers; instead of stoking the boiler every 5 minutes with an all pine fire, they only have to do it every seven minutes to keep the sap at a fierce 220 degrees. 

So in this case, the negative effects of the economy were offset by the positive effects of bad weather.

In other good news, local demand for pancakes seems to be stronger than ever, and Gould’s serves the best around. The secret? Good luck finding it out, but the essence of the Gould’s pancake is moistness. There are no crunchy fried bits on the outside, but who cares? Their perfect batter, whatever its makeup, is perfectly cooked, not at all raw, and when you dive into a triple stack it’s like taking a bite of birthday cake. And if that wasn’t enough, the homemade sour pickles are the perfect foil for all that syrup.

That’s what’s so great about Gould’s: the traditions. More than at some other places where they have propane boilers or reverse osmosis or lots of Bisquick, this place seems like the real deal. No one’s forcing them to spend the summer making all those pickles for the following spring. They do it out of a sense of pride in what they do, and of doing it right, and that sense carries all the way though the process from sap to syrup to service.