WI: Different utilization of plants in Northern Europe

Having read several books about using wild plants as food, I decided to spread my interest here. One thing I've wondered about is why, or how, didn't Europeans figure out extracting sap from trees the same way native Americans did? Such sap could be collected from numerous species, such as maple, lime and birch, and can be then boiled down into sugary syrup. The sap/syrup conversion rate is highly dependent on the species, with 20-50 liters to 1 liter with maple and 100-150 liters to 1 liter with birch sap, the latter being more abundant, especially in later periods. How could this domestic, albeit slow and barely profitable source of sugar affect European culture, economy and colonization?
Another source of sugar could be rose-bay willow-herb, which grows abundantly throughout boreal forests, especially on disturbed soil. Inside of it's rigid, fibrous outer stalk one can find a spongy, moist, and very sugary core, with a tiny hint of cucumbery flavour. The core can be scooped out and boiled, as has been the traditional way with the hunter-gatherers of Russian Far East.
 
Having read several books about using wild plants as food, I decided to spread my interest here. One thing I've wondered about is why, or how, didn't Europeans figure out extracting sap from trees the same way native Americans did? Such sap could be collected from numerous species, such as maple, lime and birch, and can be then boiled down into sugary syrup. The sap/syrup conversion rate is highly dependent on the species, with 20-50 liters to 1 liter with maple and 100-150 liters to 1 liter with birch sap, the latter being more abundant, especially in later periods. How could this domestic, albeit slow and barely profitable source of sugar affect European culture, economy and colonization?
Another source of sugar could be rose-bay willow-herb, which grows abundantly throughout boreal forests, especially on disturbed soil. Inside of it's rigid, fibrous outer stalk one can find a spongy, moist, and very sugary core, with a tiny hint of cucumbery flavour. The core can be scooped out and boiled, as has been the traditional way with the hunter-gatherers of Russian Far East.

I seem to recall that people in European Russia DID make birch syrup, although I'm not sure if that was before or after New World syrup-making techniques had been discovered by Europeans.

My guess as to the reason why it was not practiced in Western Europe was (relatively) high population densities population densities causing (relatively) high land values, which made it impossible for anyone except the very rich to purchase enough land to make a remotely profitable sugar wood. The very rich probably preferred to use their wooded land for hunting rather than sugar, and those who owned only small parcels of land would have preferred to clear it and use it for farming rather than extract sugar from the trees on it.

Producing sugar from trees is great when there's large expanses of non-privately-owned forests all around (as there is/was in North America) that you can forage from. Once land becomes privately owned, you need to purchase a whole lot of it to produce a reasonable amount of sugar, and this land is so much more valuable for other things.

I know this is only part of the explanation, because there were lots of wooded areas in Northern Europe which were worth nothing as farmland, although maybe their value as pasture land still prevented their utilization for sugar? I'm not really sure...
 
Interesting points. So basically, you'd need a large demand for goods, sugar in this case, which could be found in Western Europe, or even Byzantium. Second, a land area too cold and rough for farming, and preferably near major-ish rivers for transport. Northern Sweden (and probably Russia, too) have exactly that. I could see a sort of proto-industrialization starting there, centered around gathering sap and producing the charcoal needed to process it.
Undoubtedly, the technology and processes used would improve quickly, and tip the balance in favour of sugar in the usage of land, even in more fertile regions.

With the sudden availability of sugar, maybe a strong alcohol industry would emerge, perhaps even seeking to use other native North European plants as flavouring?
 
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Birch sap was (and is) widely tapped in much of northern Europe and sometimes fermented to make a slightly alcoholic beverage, but somehow the jump to concentration never seems to have been made like in North America (which is curious, because in America, one of the methods used was freeze-concentration, which seems like it might be developed very naturally by accident).

I just did a little research, and apparently birch sap needs to be concentrated about twice as much as maple to achieve the same level of sweetness, which might help explain why it's concentrated less often, and apparently the tapping season is shorter, which would explain the lack of commercial viability, but I'm not actually entirely convinced by this argument.
 
I read the exact same article as you did!:p
Concerning the economic feasibility, when there is demand, supply is sure to spring up. Maybe a bold pioneer tries out small scale exploitation, and it becomes a huge success, a fashion product in courts and merchant classes all over Europe?

What would this sugar product be called? Only thing I can think of is Swemel. An alternative would be tree-honey or trädhonug, anglicised Tradenog or colloquially, Nog.

Poking around, I found another VERY interesting plant, the water avens, the root of which, apparently, tastes like, yes, chocolate! I am not sure about the practicality of large scale farming, but it does grow in usually useless marshlands. Perhaps a passing aristocrat is offered a hot drink and the rest is history?

Overall, am I onto something, or is this whole thread just silly?
 
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OTL most of this planet's maple sugar is harvested in Quebec. Arable land is scarce outside the Saint Lawrence River Lowlands. As you move closer to the American border, you move into the Appalachian Mountains. Most maple "sugar bushes" are on steep, rocky soil only good for growing trees. Québécois boiled maple sap in the springtime because they were poor and had to work year-round to feed themselves. Carribbean can sugar was too expensive for all but the tiny ruling class.
During the deep of winter, habitants cut firewood to fuel their kettles. During springtime, they collected and boiled sap. As soon as snow melted off the fields, they plowed, etc.
 
Note that 'maple sugar' comes from the Sugar Maple tree, which is endemic to North America. (Hmmm... yes, you occasionally get people producing sugar from other maples, e.g. Manitoba Maple).

Also, the sugaring process requires a specific response from the tree - sugars released from the roots, sent up in the sap to grow new leaves. I understand that even if you grow Sugar Maples in Europe, the climate isn't quite right.
 
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