Wild Fox Grapes (unripe)
FOX GRAPE JELLY
In my family at least, and study of regional cookbooks suggests this is the case generally in the South, there was a pretty simple, straightforward method for making fox grape jelly. One of its advantages was that there’s enough natural pectin in fox grapes to make the jelly set nicely without using anything beyond fruit and sugar.
Start by squeezing the pulp from the skins and placing in separate bowls. Remove the seeds from the pulp. This is easily done with a plastic sieve with small holes. Discard the seeds. Cook the skins until they are tender, strain, and then combine with the pulp/juice mix which you have once the seeds have been removed. For each cup of the recombined mixture add three-quarters cup of sugar or to taste (some folks like fox grape jelly with a bit of tart bite to it). Bring the mixture to a slow boil for 10 to 20 minutes, stirring frequently until it becomes noticeably thick. At this point pour into half pint or pint jars and allow to cool. Seal it with melted paraffin or two-piece lids. A cup of fruit with the seeds removed will make about a half pint of jelly.
JC
—Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food written by Jim Casada and Tipper Pressley
Fox grapes grow wild along the creek in my mountain holler. Over the years we’ve gathered them to make jelly and juice.
When they ripen they turn a deep dusky purple. It’s hard to get them before the coons and possums feast on them.
Like the grapes on our tame vines the fox grapes are hanging full this year.
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For some reason my email service failed to send out yesterday’s post. You can find it here.
Last night’s video: Picking Beans & Matt Can’t Answer the Phone.
Tipper
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Don’t have all that many fox grapes around here anymore, do on occasion find a few possum grapes. Definitely make you pucker !
Our wild fox grapes aren’t too plentiful but we do have scuppernongs. Lovely grape taste!
You may have already seen this. But I stumbled upon an interview with Jesse Stuart on the YouTube channel WKU Archives . According to the comments the interview is from 1971. It’s an interesting interview.
https://youtu.be/bpsXlxf2egs?si=97RAbWxKvgZRdlvQ
Tipper, when I noticed I didn’t receive your blog in my email, I clicked on your Saturday’s post and at the bottom clicked on next which brought me to your Sunday post on Summertime and got to listen to it briefly before I headed to church.
Your garden looks beautiful. Our son who lives in NEMS has always used a watering system tied to his old well out from his house and set in his little well house to go on at certain times. Works great! It is hot and dry down there a lot of summers so that automatic watering system has worked great for him.
I’m not sure I ever heard of Fox Grapes but yours sure do look good. Daddy always had scuppernog and muscadine and they were really good.
You tickled me when you talked about the Party Line, as I really remember listening to that station down south at my Grandparents. Fun memories:)
Matt, I may beat you to the FIRST TOMATO sandwich. I’ve been gleefully watching a large tomato ripen off my patio and I’m going to pick it today, Monday the 8th. YAY… you may have already had one and just not posted it yet but I can hardly wait till dinner to to have mine!!! Come supper I’m having fresh picked little yellow squash, few tommy toes, green beans, cole slaw and cornbread!
Ain’t a cup and a half pint pretty much the same thang?
Glad you all have that natural bounty along the creek. I don’t think I know the grape you are calling fox grape. I only know 2 kinds of wild grapes (not counting muscadines); a small shiny black one and a dark blue small one. I sorta know a semi-wild one (I have posted about it before) that has a very white underside on the leaf. I think it might not be native. Anyway, the grapes are the best ever;big, dark, flavorful and sweet-smelling. Only ever had them twice, each time just eating where found. Did not know grape jelly did not need pectin (Sur-Jell).
We used to pick fox grapes for Mommy to can. She would wash them thoroughly and put them in a cooker and put on the fire til the skins popped then she put them in a cloth bag (or a pillow case) and squeezed all the juice back into the cooker. From there she made jelly or canned them for future use.
We had an even smaller grape on Wiggins Creek that we called possum grapes. They grew higher in the trees where they were safer from animals and little boys. About the only way to safely get them down was to pull the vine which tended to cause them to fall off into the leaves below. Mommy wanted them for her jelly too. They weren’t nothing but skins and seeds. They didn’t taste as good as fox grapes but Mommy wanted them, maybe for the pectin. A big possum grape was about the size of a green pea.
Mommy used grape juice to make deserts but my favorite was when she dropped biscuit dough from a teaspoon into boiling juice. That made mini dumplins floating in a grape sauce (maybe a gravy, I ain’t no chef). I liked it hot but I loved it cold. Refrigerator cold!
This has not been a good year for Randy’s garden, or mine. This is the first year I haven’t gotten at least 3 runs (quarts) of beans to can from my little 4×15′ raised bed. I always plant bush beans. Got enough from the first picking to make 12 pints, then something decimated the plants. Small black holes in the pods, larvae coming out of some of the pods, empty pods, and what looks like squash bug eggs on the underleaf. Don’t know what is going on, the zucchini next to the beans are doing fine. I have been watering regularly. They are getting pulled up and burned this week. Hope to treat the soil with something! Then plant again. Last year I was canning my second planting in October. If anyone has any suggestions, I appreciate all the help I can get 🙂
I am looking at those WHOPPERS you call fox grapes and are they ever a rare wild beauty and big enough to have come from Canaan land!!! Those are the PURTIEST grapes I ever saw and my how lucky you are to have them a hangin’ plentiful this year!!! Grape jelly, preserves, wine or syrup all are some things you could do or just delicious juice or a treat!!! How lucky you duckies are!!! Yummy!
I’ve never heard of fox grapes. In this neck of the woods (northern Michigan), our wild grapes are called riverbank grapes. They look like dark blue concord grapes, and their harvests are a big deal. People make jams and jellies, juice, and homemade wine with these beautiful fruits. They are also a bit tart, so most douse them in sugar or ferment them for a tart wine. I don’t drink, so I’ve never tried the wine, but most seem to love it. That said, I tried cherry wine once and thought it tasted like cherries, but I didn’t care much for the alcohol taste. I prefer my cherries in pies and grapes made into jelly!
Nancy, my doctor told me I needed to eat more fruit so I have been eating a lot of fruit pies! I do not and have never in my lifetime drank any alcoholic drinks. I never needed alcohol to have fun and enjoy life.
I’ve never heard them called “fox grapes” either. Where I live in NW Alabama. we call them muss-kee-dines (phonetic spelling/whatever their proper name). I have heard a few folks call them wild grapes or scuppy-nungs (Phonetic), but that isn’t common.
Morning Tipper … this is a bit off-topic but I’ve sent you two pieces as follow-ups to Break Dancing Deer. Not sure if they’re not coming through or I’ve going to SPAM but wanted to make sure you knew I’ve sent them. Take care!
I don’t remember seeing fox grapes in my area, at least not at the creek on our property. I do remember my Mother and Grandmother working their rear ends off during this time of the year canning or preserving any vegetables or any fruit they grew or was wild. The summer would be the busiest time of the year for them. My mother would make citron preserves- not pickles, from volunteer citrons that would could back each year. I don’t think they were good for anything else, I have heard deer won’t even eat them. They were my favorite preserves. Anyone remember the small green tomato and hot peppers that would be put together in glass jars, or chow chow? I was told those green tomatoes and some of the chow chow were hot enough to put blisters on a work glove, I never tried to eat either of them.
I remember when I was growing up in the 50 and 60’s the high schools would have “canneries “ open during the summer for people to can their vegetables and fruit in metal cans. I guess the Home EC and FFA students helped with this. In my area the schools had heated “potato houses’ during the winter months for the farmers to store their sweet potatoes. Anyone remember the old time sweet potato banks some farmers made to store the potatoes.
Tipper, my Daddy would tell of dry weather beans – green beans grew through times of dry weather that would not have beans/seed inside of the pod. They pods would be empty.