Fragrant baskets of muscadine grapes are now appearing at farmers markets and in grocery stores. Muscadines are our native Southern grapes. Large fruited, spicy sweet, their thick skins come in shades of purple and bronze.
The bronze varieties are often called scuppernongs, although that name properly refers only to the first named variety of muscadine, found growing wild in northeastern North Carolina in 1810.
Michelle Goodman and her husband Will are the owners of Oakton House in Marietta, built in 1838 by a family from Savannah looking to escape the coastal summer heat and humidity. Will Goodman’s grandparents bought the house in 1939. The original kitchen gardens and orchard now supply Michelle Goodman with a bounty of fruits and vegetables to sell on Saturday mornings at the Marietta Square Farmers Market.
For fall she’ll be selling heirloom tomatoes, apples, cut flowers, herbs, ornamental gourds, pumpkins, Indian corn, lots of fresh basil and boxes of muscadines.
Goodman started selling at the Marietta market three years ago.
“I kept coming in with bushel baskets of produce and thought ‘What am I going to do with all this stuff?’ There’s only so much you can pass along to your neighbors,” she said. She set up a booth at the market on a trial basis and has been there ever since.
In their garden, an arbor covered with seven-year-old muscadine vines provides a shady respite.
“It’s always 10 degrees cooler under there. We set out tables and serve hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. It’s wonderful,” she said. That shady arbor also makes a pleasant place to harvest the muscadines she takes to market.
“I find that people who haven’t grown up in the South don’t know what these are, but Southerners know and love them. They buy our boxes and just pop the grapes right in their mouths. I think they eat them all before they even get home,” said Goodman.
Cultivated muscadines, like the ones Goodman grows, are sweet and juicy. The seeds can be bitter, so those familiar with the fruit advise spitting them out or just swallowing them whole.
If your muscadines make it home, they’ll keep for up to a week in your refrigerator. Don’t wash until you’re ready to eat or cook with them.
Many Atlanta chefs enjoy cooking with muscadines. Steven Satterfield of Miller Union likes to use a centrifugal juicer to make muscadine juice.
“You can drink it on its own or use it to deglaze a pan or add to a sauce. I like sautéing quail in butter with a little ginger and country ham and then deglazing the pan with muscadine juice to make a sauce from the pan drippings that is both sweet and savory,” said Satterfield.
Satterfield also offered a great tip for dealing with those bitter seeds.
“I take an old fork - we all have a random one in our silverware drawer, right? - and bend down the outer tines with a pair of pliers. The remaining two tines in the center make an excellent tool for seeding muscadines,” he said.
AT LOCAL FARMERS MARKETS
Cooking demos:
6 p.m. Thursday, September 20. Chef Seth Freedman of Forage and Flame. East Atlanta Village Farmer’s Market, Atlanta. www.farmeav.com
9:30 a.m. Saturday, September 22. Chef Steven Satterfield from Miller Union working with muscadines. Morningside Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.morningsidemarket.com
11:30 a.m. Sunday, September 23. Chef Bruce Logue of STG. Grant Park Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.grantparkmarket.org
FOR SALE
Vegetables, fruit and nuts: African squash, apples, arugula, Asian greens, beets, chard, chestnuts, corn, cucumbers, dandelion, eggplant, field peas, garlic, ginger, green and yellow beans, herbs, kale, komatsuna, lettuce, muscadine grapes, mushrooms, mustard greens, okra, onions, pea shoots, pears, peppers, pole beans, potatoes, sorrel, spaghetti squash, spinach, sweet potato greens, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, turnips, watermelon, winter squash, yellow squash, zucchini
From local reports
Muscadine Syrup
Hands on: 15 minutes Total time: 15 minutes Makes 3 1/2 cups syrup (2 tablespoon serving)
This weekend chef Steven Satterfield of Miller Union will be demonstrating two recipes at the Morningside Farmers Market — muscadine chutney and this recipe for muscadine syrup. The syrup is a particularly nice recipe for those who like the flavor of muscadines but don’t want to deal with the seeds and skins. The syrup will keep for weeks in your refrigerator and would make a delicious base for a rum or vodka cocktail as well.
1 pound muscadines (about 3 cups)
2 cups water
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Sparkling water or seltzer
Thinly sliced lemon
Squeeze muscadines to lightly crush them and drop into a medium saucepan. Add water and sugar and stir. Turn heat to medium and simmer until skins slip from the grapes, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
When cool, strain syrup and store, covered, in refrigerator until ready to use. To serve, mix 2 tablespoons of syrup with sparkling water or seltzer. Serve over ice and garnish with lemon slices if desired.
Per 2-tablespoon serving: 49 calories (percent of calories from fat, 0), trace protein, 12 grams carbohydrates, trace fiber, no fat, no cholesterol, 55 milligrams sodium.
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