Saps

A Shared Labor of Love

Around the turn of the last century, Italian families poured into Connecticut, boosting their numbers from only 117 in 1868 to more than 227,000 by 1930. Fueled by the dire poverty of Southern Italy, immigrants looked for a future in a country that promised unlimited opportunity.

Industries in Northwest Connecticut soon attracted these hardworking, industrious people. Here they found jobs with the railroad, in the quarrying and iron industries and bought land to farm where they raised large, thrifty families.

But while they found a new life in a new land, they did not abandon their culture when they passed through Ellis Island. Traditions were nurtured in the stony hills of New England that decades later were fondly recalled by the first generation born here. Yes, there was backbreaking labor but the drudgery was offset by warm family connections and social evenings when extended families came together to share tasks such as canning produce, preparing salami and sausage and making wine.

“I remember we were taken every Thanksgiving to make sausage and salami,” recalled Canaan First Selectman Charles Perotti. “We always had a lot of fun.”

Four generations after Perotti’s parents, Peter and Catherine, first set foot on American soil, that sense of community is alive and well in East Canaan. There the self-proclaimed East Canaan Cultural Center is at a full boil making maple syrup in the barn on Francis “Champ” Perotti’s Lower Road property. “This is my project to keep the retired people in Canaan busy,” said Champ Perotti wryly, adding that the syruping operation was meant to be his “hobby” when he, himself, retires. “I just can’t seem to retire, though,” said the third-generation manager of the family’s plumbing business.

But time waits on no man and his syrup production has grown exponentially since the idea was first introduced by his daughter, Mary, in 2017. And it has now reached out to include a cluster of volunteers and the trees on the properties of many neighbors. Primary among the retirees he is keeping busy are Clarence DuBay and Donald Segalla who spend weekdays picking up the sap collected throughout the neighborhood. “Clarence is always meeting new people who let us tap their trees,” said Perotti’s wife, Dolores.

“We started with 10 trees I have in back of my house,” Champ Perotti said. “Now, we have about 1,000 taps in.” He pointed to a large collection tank behind the barn. “That holds 1,200 gallons and last week we filled it in one day.”

Needless to say, the process has had to be updated and modernized as production grew. Vacuum pumps suck the sap out of onsite collection tanks and into storage containers on the back of trucks. At the barn it is off-loaded to the 1,200-gallon tank and then pulled through tubing into the boiling room, where it is forced through an osmosis machine to concentrate the sap down to 600 gallons.

Propane is used to boil the sap. “We used to use wood fires,” Perotti said, “but we are all getting older so we went to propane. I have to have 600,000 BTUs and I’m burning through propane like crazy but the heat is more consistent and you don’t have to leave sap in the boiler while you wait for the fire to die down.”

All the boiling down and bottling is done on weekends when friends and family convene to help. Conviviality is as thick as the smell of maple syrup during these sessions. “It’s always a celebration,” said Dolores Perotti. “It’s all family together. Last weekend, we all had waffles with whipped cream when we were done.”

“After all, you have to clean out the boiler,” quipped DuBay, who said he became involved six years ago. “I just stopped by to say hello and I’m still here,” he said happily.

Last year this ad hoc team produced 211 gallons of syrup, which is distributed, free of charge, “to people who do good stuff,” according to Dolores. For instance, eighty-seven bottles were donated to the local food pantry while others were given to workers at the post office. “We gave away 2,200 bottles last year. It’s a community gift,” she said

The finished product carries the label “Saps Maple Syrup,” Saps being a contraction of Segalla and Perotti. The back label gaily proclaims, “This syrup was created in the East Canaan Cultural Center (our barn) … We make maple syrup, beer, pottery, tune skis, yoga and lifting, chickens, turkeys and ducks, a little sausage and salami and the bees do the honey! What does this all have in common … Family and friends! So relax, enjoy this syrup and know it was created with smiles and laughter and one heck of a good time!”

Throughout the year the community spirit prevails. Indeed, daughter Mary has a pottery studio on the upper floor of the barn and every fall she draws friends together to make up to 18 different kinds of sausage and salami using an old Riva family recipe.

In the fall, turkeys are processed and shared with family and friends. “Everyone shares pictures of their turkey on the table,” Dolores said. “We’re all family oriented—we come from big families, and we have stayed close. (The old Italian families) had a good thing going on back then, so why not continue it?”