They’re finding us. The rich folks at Wall Street Journal are laughing at us too, and don’t know my way of eating a concord grape.
This month alone, Saveur has a recipe for Concord Grape Soda.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203499704576622773076335108.html?grcc=3Z6189390816939663667&mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_lifestyle
and here’s what the WSJ has to say, courtesy of Writing By Ear. Thanks, kiddo! Dee
When you visit, as I had a number of visitors today asking about Concord grapes, please visit the farm stands and look at what else is fresh that you can cook today or take home.
Some of my best childhood memories are there, at a creek, a farm market, a local dairy or picking grapes, blueberries and strawberries.
Dinners with family, extended family holidays, and always hanging out with the neighbors were always welcome and exciting. I think that’s why I wanted to learn how to cook, to please and always have a sense of family around me.
The enchanted forest and the road to the dump, the guy who came and took away our large furniture, only for Dad to find it all at his home. Our neighbors with countless stray animals and a dog that came to us for a week at a time.
The horse that threw me, brownies and girl scouts, halloween in the populated part of town (couldn’t eat anything until my parents, the next day, went through everything). Trick or Treat for UNICEF one year. No-one bought into it with quarters. I think I stuffed the box with some of my baby-sitting money).
Later on I worked summers in college and also worked on a couple of political campaigns. I have family there. My heart is there for the people I grew up with, but I don’t think our lives will go there unless it’s for retirement.
It is a place I have such ties to, and love to visit and encourage others to do so. Cheers, Dee
Me Interviewer (Interviewer) or Me
Interviewer: So how did you get to know Concord grapes?
Me: I lived, from age 8-10 next to a vineyard a local farmer/dairyman lived.
Interviewer: What did you think of them?
Me: the most amazing taste. Fresh off the vine.
Interviewer: Were you legally picking from that vine?
Me: Yes, we were told we could eat all we wanted but that if we were ever caught having a “grape fight” with each other (my sister) or our two boy neighbors that tasting would be forbidden. We solemnly adhered to that rule.
Interviewer: Why can’t fresh Concord grapes be shipped long distances?
Me: I don’t know but think it has to do with freshness and the pristine nature of the grapes when picked at their prime stage of readiness, plus they must not ship well
Interviewer: People in grape-growing counties love their grapes and use them in all kinds of recipes. How did the Concord grapes get preserved for people across the country?
Me: Try Welch’s grape juice or Manischewitz kosher wine. I now hear that Concord grapes come frozen, but getting them out of their leathery skins and removing the seeds must just make it a pulp. I’ve never been able to find it and would look.
Interviewer: Why would you look?
Me: Because if I can’t be back where I lived as a child, I’d like to taste the next best thing and remember those days at the creek where I was allowed to be a tomboy.
Thank you for your time and interesting commentary. Cheers, Dee
I have hits today with some specific questions that I’d like to answer.
Can you eat the skin of a Concord grape? Sure. I would rinse them well first and ascertain whether they’re organic or full of pesticides. The ones I ate as a kid were full of pesticides and, not knowing any better, I plopped them in my mouth and spat out the skin and then the seeds as I was taught by the local kids.
When can you eat a Concord grape? Preferably fresh at the end of the growing season in October before the first frost. After the eating grapes are gone the rest all go into juice, and grape jelly. Some friends from Concord grape territory mash the grapes and freeze them for pies et al.
For me, they’re best right off the vine in a vineyard you’re legally picking from.
Hope this helps! Dee
I find it interesting that the most read posts are about concord grapes, and capons. There’s no telling what you will like and what I know to write about. Thank you for reading and joining my journey through my culinary travails. I do hope that my successes and failures help you, and that you’ll feel free to correct me when I’m wrong. Please check the new sections up top for pantry items and cookbooks, as these are how this blog was started. Cheers, Dee
I took up acoustic folk guitar last year because I knew it would be a long winter and no-one was around and music had always interested me from violin to piano to dance. Both my instructors were more comfortable teaching grade school students but found raw talent even if it came with an adult mind and body.
My first private instructor taught me basic chords mainly via childrens’ songs, Johnny Cash and others. My second was a rock & roll drummer and we were all over the place. For both, I brought in songs I wanted to learn, just to be able to strum with family and have a sing-along. I don’t think any song I chose to learn was written after the 70′s.
Then one day I was driving home from errands, turned on the radio and “Hey There, Delilah” was playing. I loved the tune. A few weeks later I was able to download the lyrics and vowed to figure out the chords for a beginner guitarist. I do that. But the best thing was being able to tell my teacher that I finally found a song from this decade, this century, that I want to learn to play!
Quit guitar for a while but bought a nice one and keep it in shape and hydrated. My husband told me weeks ago about a work function we have to attend and I kept it in the back of my mind, but tonight he told me it’s a concert. Plain White Tees! I jumped up and down (ask him!) and told him this story. I hear Delilah in my head but have to put it to paper before Friday and the private company concert. I’m going to do it without listening to it and make it work for beginner guitar. That’s my challenge. Aside from heating up my butternut squash and carrot soup, making sharp mac & cheese and a green salad, all I have to do is wash the dog and 12 other things. I’m best under the gun (figuratively, of course).
I hope you’re doing what you want in your life. It’s probably cooking. These days you may be one of the few to eat Concord grapes freshly picked. I ache for those days when I had them fresh off the vine. I need to find the site where they’re freezing the pulp and winnowing out the seeds. If I could get frozen Concord grape pulp, I’d learn how to make a great pie and use it for savory dishes as well. Cheers, Dee
My grade-school music teacher, Mrs. P., happened to call me on my birthday earlier this month. We met a few years ago at a party for my Dad’s birthday. She was always a great lady and teacher and it was good to re-connect after many years. She has been reading the blog and as she comes from Chautauqua County, ancestral home of Concord grapes, she wanted to get me the newest cookbook around that also has a Concord grape pie in it that is very close to hers, but sometimes she does it with a crumble rather than a lattice topping.
I have to tuck into a nice chair or sofa or bed to read the book “All About Grapes” published by Morris Press Cookbooks and will tell you more. For now, I can tell you that having an autographed cookbook by the author and my teacher makes me want to cook with grapes and play the guitar and piano as well as sing. Thanks so much, Mrs. P.
We love Alton Brown. Me more for taste, Jim more for the science of cooking as he wonders about this, my strange preponderance with food. Mr. Brown has a Welch’s ad on television that is filmed in Erie County, NY. A preponderance of Concord grapes can be found in Chautauqua County, home of the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union), more grapes than anywhere and they are grafting vinifera and don’t have phylloxera because of the strength of the vines.
The home of the WCTU is a small Victorian house in Chautauqua Institution, and Chautauqua is a place where our family shares a history. Butternut Hollow in Portland, Chautauqua NY may help you do a show on the story of grapes in Chautauqua County. My blog’s biggest hits come from my home-town Concord grape post, one of my first posts. Yes, and Manischewitz was right down the street from my childhood home.
Your show should come from Chautauqua County and include grape pies, schiattiata con al’uva and other delights. The Italian “pizza” is a dough that is risen once and rolled out, grapes are added (with seeds) and left to rise again, sugar is added and it is baked. Yum! I’ve only had that in Tuscany. Perhaps there’s a book in the mail that will bring us further on the grape trail… ‘Til then, cheers, Dee
By the number of hits I see on my blog every day about how to eat a Concord grape, I know there is interest in the product, which is good for grape growers and everyone else employed in making most of these gorgeous clusters into juice.
For those who get to eat one bunch (legally) off the vine it is a treasure and one I appreciated as a kid but not to the extent I do now. I’m thrilled that you want to know this stuff, how to eat a Concord grape is my most-read blog entry. We had a private tour of a Portland NY farm and Jim’s Dad, a rancher and former dairy farmer for 30 years, enjoyed seeing the operation first-hand.
Growers are invited to write in with recipes for people driving through Chautauqua County who can’t possibly eat all the grapes they bought at the farmers’ market. As for me, I miss it. Watching the grapes grow and going to pick blueberries at the farm up the hill was fantastic. Part of it is being a kid and taking off my shoes after the snow was gone and going barefoot for the summer, climbing cliffs, catching crayfish and playing with the local kids along the creek where I want my ashes to be buried, if the then-current owners consent.
The other part is what living next door to a farm we learned a bit about the land and all our neighbors were in FFA (Future Farmers of America) and we were Girl Scouts. No, we never had a heifer, only a dog that we had to give to a farmer when we moved. My dad tried to tame the land, to no avail. I’d love to buy it back to retire on but that’s years away.
As for taste memories, grapes, cherries, blueberries and baby strawberries come to mind. It was a short growing season but farmers made good use of the time they had and grew mainly apples and grapes. Grape season back home now means snow season here. I just looked out the window and the snow is coming down, and sticking, hopefully not to the roads yet. Jim may forget that when I grew up back east I shoveled regularly but never had to deal with snow tires or chains as I was too young to drive. Our weekends were full of chores, nonetheless. Hope you’re having a quiet evening before settling in for another week. Cheers, Dee.
As my Aunt Lorna anticipates her birthday next week I would like to hail her for her conscience, fortitude, generosity and kindness. That tribute doesn’t even nip at all her other attributes.
She was born to a poor family yet she and her two elder sisters were well educated through high school. Aunt Lorna traveled from Montreal Canada to San Francisco to work. As a young high school graduate and secretary, she got all her clothes hand-made by a tailor. Imagine that, ladies!
She bought a Mustang to drive back east. She took care of us and lived with us for a while when she went to college, then she became a high school English teacher. She taught Romeo and Juliet to her ninth graders, probably MacBeth to her tenth graders. Students feared and loved her, as she’d take students to Stratford, Ontario to the Shakespeare festival.
Aunt Lorna and friend and colleague Joanie researched and initated the first high school English programs related to the Holocaust, and Native Americans. They were pioneers in a new form of teaching. Spelling and syntax weren’t the be-all and end-all. Literature was to be enjoyed and cherished.
My parents and Aunt Lorna were the reasons I was reading Death Be Not Proud and The Diary of Anne Frank at age eight. Plus A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and To Kill a Mockingbird. But Hemingway and Steinbeck, plus the Bard, were her tried and true friends.
When Aunt Lorna and Joanie started their summertime catering business, they catered for parties required to be held due to my father’s job at the time. All the kids helped out, passing trays for the guests or working in the kitchen. Aunt Lorna has always had an eye for quality and value, and would contribute use of her silver and linens as needed to make the party a success.
The tasting rule was that one had to taste the goods, then could ask the ingredients (presumably she would not have served husband Jim fish if she knew of his allergies). It was a great rule! She made this three-cheese mousse with Roquefort, that I thought was stinky and so wouldn’t try it. It was marvelous. Today I can walk into a store in Italy and order Gorgonzola Dolce and know to serve it with fresh pears.
When we were kids, every Christmas Aunt Lorna would come to breakfast. One year when I was in college, she got stuck in the snow before going down a steep hill to our driveway and we all went to rescue her.
On Saturday I received a package. It contained a magazine article about leaf ceramic ware, majolica, and a plate that made its way from my great-aunt’s home in Montreal to Aunt Lorna’s. While there, Jim was trying to turn on a light, and broke the plate. Like Humpty-Dumpty, it’s back together again and on display in our corner cabinet.
Aunt Lorna didn’t teach me how to iron, Mom did. But I now have her brand of iron that makes quick work of shirts and linens. Luckily I have a cleaner for Jim’s shirts because he’s a big guy and his shirts still take a long time to iron. She combs “estate sales” for collectibles and has the largest selections of crystal and linens I’ve ever seen. I keep two beautifully embroidered linen towels in our bathroom without ever using them, just washing and ironing them every few months.
In July of 2005, Lorna’s oldest sister Joan died of cancer. We all went to Canada for the funeral. Less than two months ago my mother died, also of cancer. Now it’s up to the youngest and healthiest sister to carry on, and that she will, with grace and style.
I was somewhat apprehensive about Aunt Lorna and Joanie meeting Jim’s parents for the first time. Not only did they hit it off, they provided Jim’s folks the Civil War Suite at a local B&B, and took us to a Concord grape vineyard to meet the owner and see the mechanical grape picker.
Dinner is always a treat and we talked and laughed well into the evening.
Margie & Joe
They took Jim’s folks to Lake Erie for sunset and took this photo, which they have framed in their living room.
Happy birthday, Aunt Lorna. Thanks for teaching me so much over my fifty years on this earth.
I expect this to be corrected in red pen and sent back to me for spelling and grammatical errors, with your effusive script, of course.
We’re always here for you, no matter what. With much love, Dee
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