North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

Title: FW: [growwine] From Kit Loeckle: newspaper article

An item relevant to this list.

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From: "Larry Paterson" <littlefatwino@trytel.net>
Reply-To: growwine@kawartha.com
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 13:25:09 -0400
To: <growwine@kawartha.com>
Subject: [growwine] From Kit Loeckle: newspaper article

From: cloekle <cloekle@midmaine.com>
Subject: Re: [growwine] Article on American grapes

Thanks, Tom. Let's try this:
[The New York Times] [Sponsored by Starbucks]
<http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1012>
------------------------------------------------------------------------


          October 2, 2002


    American Grapevines Set Cooks Buzzing

By MATT LEE and TED LEE

[O] NE recent afternoon, the chefs Dan Barber and Michael Anthony were
painting purple hues in the kitchen in Blue Hill, their restaurant in
Greenwich Village. Mr. Anthony spooned onto a plate an indigo sauce he
had reduced from a quart of ripe Concord grapes plus shallots, ginger
and lemon grass, creating a pool for four barely steamed red Maine shrimp.

"As a kid, I loved grape jelly," Mr. Barber said, putting finishing
touches on a Concord grape marmalade, a condiment for seared foie gras.
Earlier, he had seeded the grapes and had separated their nectary pulp
from their slip skins. He had cooked the grapes with a small quantity of
sugar, folded in caramelized onions and a touch of vegetable broth, and
had baked the mix until it reduced to a thick jam. Now he was tweaking
its sweetness with spoonfuls of an inky, tart grape-skin purée.

"I've come a long way from Welch's," Mr. Barber said, laughing. Indeed
he had. As he got ready to prepare a third grape-laced sauce for the
menu that night -- a glaze for duck breast -- the thought came to mind
that an American grape had rarely inspired such enthusiasm. Maybe it
last happened in 1585, when Ralph Lane, who governed the English colony
at Roanoke, told Sir Walter Raleigh he had found better vines growing
wild in the New World than existed in England.

After long indifference, native grapes -- labruscas in the northern
United States (Delaware, catawba, Concord, Niagara) and muscadines in
the South (scuppernong, Carlos and supreme) -- are being slowly
rediscovered by chefs, who appreciate their emphatically fruity flavors.
Those flavors stand up better to cooking and reducing than do those of
delicate European grapes like chardonnay and sangiovese, and of
California table grapes like Thompson seedless.

In the restaurant Patio Dining, in Greenwich Village, Sara Jenkins, the
chef, was slowly roasting green tomatoes and Concord grapes that had
been splashed with white wine, a dish inspired by one she encountered in
Tuscany this summer. "The Concords are so floral," she said. "You can
smell them when you open the oven."

Like Ms. Jenkins, Hugh Acheson, the chef at Five & Ten, a restaurant in
Athens, Ga., credits Italy with inspiring him to serve his roasted whole
scuppernongs with veal.

"Muscadines are like a brawnier version of a table grape," Mr. Acheson
said. "But there's greater acid in them, so I think people readily
adjust to them in a savory setting."

Many Americans look forward to the grape season, which runs
approximately from August, when the fresh clusters begin to appear at
farmers' markets and roadside stands, to November, when they begin to
disappear.

A ripe labrusca or muscadine eaten out of one's hand is an unforgettable
experience; by comparison, some vinifera table grapes like Himrod and
Interlaken have the character of a glass of chilled sugar water. A
native grape like scuppernong bursts with a shot of nectar and a short
spike of acidity that focuses the tones of honeysuckle, wildflower and
orange blossom. A dark, musky note, like cola or melon, that lingers in
the flavor, especially in the muscadines, gives rise to the common
description of these grapes as foxy.

But the term foxy, whose meaning has never been clear, is not a
compliment -- to wine fans, at least -- and the sticky-sweet kosher
wines and homemade wines produced from these grapes in the last century
have not brought native grapes much respect in America.

Concord-grape jellies and juices on supermarket shelves, which dilute
and flatten the grape's nuances with added water and sugar, cannot have
helped their cause in the kitchen.

The stigma may be lifting as American chefs warm to their charms and
experiment with grapes in savory dishes, as Europeans have done for years.

"It's a peppery, raisin-seed-like huckleberry flavor," John Sundstrom,
chef at Earth and Ocean restaurant in Seattle, said of Concord. This
time of year, with grapes in season, he pairs foie gras with Concord
grape chutney instead of the Rainier cherries he uses all summer.

Of course native grapes, with their jammy, blossomy personality, appear
on dessert menus throughout the country. At the well-known L'Étoile, in
Madison, Wis., the chef, Odessa Piper, makes a Concord grape and port
sauce for drizzling around a flourless chocolate cake that hides within
it a chocolate truffle made from fresh Concord purée, cream and Valrhona.

In North Carolina, the House of Representatives recently named the
muscadine grape the state fruit. Karen Barker, the pastry chef at the
Magnolia Grill in Durham, cooks muscadines with honey and a touch of
orange juice to make a muscadine syrup that she serves with poached
Seckel pears. "I don't want to mask that spicy, musky flavor," Ms.
Barker said.

Ms. Barker's husband, Ben Barker, the Magnolia Grill's chef, loves the
way the grapes' high pectin content can bind a terrine, but noted that
for some customers, the grapes can be a tough sell.

"Native North Carolinians either love muscadines or hate them," he said.
Then, speaking of newcomers, he said, "Non-natives -- who outnumber
natives these days -- don't know what they are."

Educating consumers about native grapes is a challenge for growers, too.
In the South, primarily in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and South
Carolina, the muscadine market is supported by stalwarts, especially
older people who make wine, jelly, juice and pie. But the strongest
market consists of people who buy them to eat in supermarkets or at
pick-your-own vineyards.

At Kildeer Farm, the Rev. Osco Gardin, 66, a Gastonia, N.C., native, had
completed several passes along the vines before we caught up with him at
the cash register.

Mr. Gardin said he picked about four gallons of grapes each week during
muscadine season. "I've heard that some people make wine with
muscadines," he said. "Not me. They go straight into my mouth."

Muscadines are not yet regulated by uniform Agriculture Department
grading standards, which makes them virtually impossible to sell
wholesale outside the regions where they grow, said Ervin Lineberger,
62, the owner of Kildeer. Fruit not subject to federal standards may be
refused at markets like Hunts Point in the Bronx.

If the Agriculture Department approves an application for grading by
North Carolina growers, however, muscadines may begin appearing outside
the South in a year or two.

In New York, the visibility of Concords is higher than that of
scuppernongs in the South, since New York's history of commercial
labrusca vineyards dates to the 1830's, and because the state is the No.
2 producer of labrusca, with perhaps 25,000 acres under vines.
(Washington is first, with at least 45,000 acres, none used for wine.)

Eileen Farnan, who with her husband, Ken, runs the 37-acre Buzzard Crest
Vineyards in Penn Yan, N.Y., in the Finger Lakes region, sells a number
of labrusca varieties at Greenmarkets in Manhattan and Brooklyn and has
noticed a rising interest in them in the past 30 years.

She attributes this interest to their punchy flavors. "Everyone knows
supermarket grape jelly, right?" she said. "Well, intensify that aroma
tenfold and you've got a Concord cluster in your hand."

But Ms. Farnan observed that even Greenmarket shoppers passionate about
the taste have one reservation about Concords. "The biggest problem is
the seeds," she said. "It's the only derogatory comment I've ever heard
about Concords."


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