Isn't This Beautiful?

Muscadine grape season is here!  It caught me a little by surprise this year; my internal calendar has been so damaged by travel chaos, that I almost forgot it was August.  But there they were in Ward's!  And I was beside myself with joy.  This kind of thing reminds me of why so many festivals grew up around certain foods.  As soon as I got home, I rinsed one, popped it in my mouth, and wanted to sing and dance.

Muscadines are a wild grape indigenous to the southeastern U.S.  "Scuppernong" was one of the first named varieties and is now sometimes used as a synonym for all muscadines. Some people call the purple ones muscadines and the golden ones scuppernongs.  But a lot of deep southerners call them "bullet grapes," which is a corruption of "Bullace" - a type of European plum that the large purple ones apparently resemble.  A grape by any name...

They do taste sweet - and I might say  with "oaken" or "earthy" undertones if I understood wine adjectives, which I don't.  They do have an unusual flavor though - and an even more unusual texture.  Their insides are sometimes described in terms like "mucilaginous" or most recently by a college-age friend: "loogy-like" (although this same person ate half my grapes).

For me, and many other southerners, they are singularly delicious.  They have the perfect qualities: wild, sweet, transient (August and September), and with usually wonderful associations for people who have lived here a while.  In my case, they are part of the one memory I have of my great grandmother's house - sitting in the shed on a hot summer evening learning to play Monopoly with distant cousins, and of the vines that grew around my grandparents' (from the other side of the family) chicken coop. These, with no fertilizer, watering, or special care at all, produced the large purple variety that were always at their peak around my birthday. Magical. 

The other thing about these grapes is that they don't ripen once they're picked, and they're at their peak of sweetness when they're quite soft.  So, they don't travel well which is why they aren't available usually beyond our region.  It's also why the best way to get them is at a u-pick grape vineyard.  Although I got some mighty fine ones at Ward's and again on Wednesday at the downtown market. 

You should try them if you haven't already.  I was taught to eat them by biting a little hole into the stem end and sucking out the fruit. If you really practice, you can do this in such a way that you leave the seeds behind in the skin. The skin can be a little astringent if not extremely ripe, but If you get some thin-skinned, very ripe ones, then go ahead and eat the skin too.

Then go sing and dance!   

Comments

[Waste Wear Daily]

Welcome back from all your travels. I am excited about the grapes as well. Not much else is growing now. We have a sand pear tree and the pears are ripining now. Making plans for the fall/winter garden.
Cindy

[laia]

Yes! I love them too! I saw a long time ago that there are some u-pick places just north of here (Tampa Bay) so I'll try finding those names again. How exciting! Last year I did see them in Publix as well, but farm fresh is always better.