[Sca-cooks] grape suggestions, anyone?

[Stefan li Rous]

Dana/Ximena asked:
> A friend of mine recently moved and now has a "yard full of
> concord grapes."  So, having been deluded into thinking I
> Know Things, she has asked me what she can do with them.  I
> assume they can be just plain eaten, and made into juice
> and jelly and such.  Are they a good table/juice grape?  Is
> this a good variety for a beginning wine-maker to play
> with?  What else might a not-very-experienced cook do with
> them?  Any ideas are much appreciated, but extra points for
> period recipes; I'm trying to talk her into checking out
> the local SCA (she's in the Boulder, CO area).

Well, Concord grapes are a New World variety, so you won't find
them in any period recipes. That doesn't mean that you can't use
them in some of the period recipes but you should be aware that
the taste will be different from using a European grape.

Most of the "grape juice" that you buy in the American supermarkets
has at least some Concord grape juice in it, so yes, it can make
a good juice grape.

Like many juices, you could probably boil the juice down to make
a good ice cream topping. I don't know if you would need to add
sugar or not as they are a pretty sweet grape already. My grandmother
used to make jelly from grapes she grew on her own vines.

As someone else mentioned you can make wine from the juice. The
unripe grapes might make a reasonable verjuice. I'm pretty sure
that you could use these grapes in pies or tarts.

A web search should turn up plenty of pie and jelly recipes that
use Concord grapes.

I also imagine that Concord grapes could be dried and eaten that
way, like so many other grapes and fruits.

While oriented toward European grapes, perhaps some of the info
in these Florilegium files might be of use:
grapes-msg        (32K)  9/10/01    Period grapes, raisins and currants.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-FRUITS/grapes-msg.html
wine-msg         (129K)  2/ 5/01    Medieval wines.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/wine-msg.html
--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****