For Marcel Leboeuf, maple syrup as far as he is concerned is a question of DNA, and he always knew that one day he was going to produce it.
“My grandfather and my cousins had a sugar shack. I bathed in this universe for several years, the actor told us in an interview. I go into a cabin, I go into a trance. Often I tell the world I’ve never done drugs, but I can snort taffy. […] It’s in my DNA.”
“It was written in the sky that I was going to have mine one day or another,” he added, he who has owned a maple grove in Estrie for a dozen years.
In the beginning, Mr. Leboeuf worked casually by collecting maple sap from the boiler. At that time he had 900 boilers. “During sugaring off, people offered to help me, but when it was time to pick up I found myself alone with my friend Michel. We’re getting older, so we decided to get on the tubing five years ago,” said the man, who currently has about 1,000 taps.
The actor has learned a lot since he is also a maple syrup producer, in particular that there is more than one variety of maple to make syrup. “The nutrients that are found inside the syrup are not the same. The color of the syrup varies according to the time of the season. At the beginning it is lighter and at the end darker.
In fact, he recommends people to cook with dark syrup, because it is tastier according to him.
While the trees should begin to give their sap very soon, Marcel Leboeuf hopes that the harvest will be better than last year. “The trees had nothing to pump. I could twist them, but nothing came out, ”he joked.
According to him, when there is heavy wet snow on the branches at night and in the morning it is three degrees, these are optimal conditions for the maple trees to flow in abundance.
A pandemic shift
At the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, Marcel Leboeuf did not have a contract as an actor. He therefore took the opportunity to change his mind, by starting to deliver his own maple products to his customers. Shortly after, he was approached by an organization helping women in Africa, the Fondation Mères du Monde en Santé. “I was touched by their mission and decided to partner with them. My products are on their site,” he said.
This collaboration contributes to the financing of the Foundation, whose mission is to reduce the prevalence of childbirth complications in Africa through, among other things, prevention campaigns as well as missions by medical teams in the field.