Canning Grape Juice (Easy and Fast)

"In southern Appalachia, the wild grapes are muscadines, foxes, possums, and scuppernogs."

 Appalachian Home Cooking: History, Culture, and Recipes by Mark F. Sohn 

I picked these Concord grapes from vines my in-laws planted nearly 35 years ago. Just imagine how many jars of jelly and juice those vines have produced over the years! It is still a popular grazing spot for everyone in the family. One for me, one for the basket, two for me, one for the basket...you get the idea. 

"Like the native American crab apples that farmers grafted with European apples, the Concord grape was the result of an intense breeding program. While European grapes tend to have thin skins, native American grapes are thick-skinned. Botanists call them slipskins; settlers and foragers today call them fox grapes. Two hundred years ago, the wild grapes growing in New England were abundant, beautiful, and sweet-smelling, but they did not taste good, and so some New Englanders store them in brandy. However, Ephraim Wales Bull of Concord, a friend of Henry David Thoreau, believed he could find a solution to the problem, and he worked hard to create a new grape. After ten years, in 1853, Bull presented a new grape to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and he called it the Concord. It did not take long for the new Concords to spread to Appalachia, where mountaineers used them to make jelly, wine, juice, and pies." Encyclopedia of Appalachia

Since I've already made several pints of peach jelly and plan to make some apple in the next week or two, I decided to turn these freshly picked grapes into juice. The recipe I use couldn't be simpler:

1. Heat your clean jars, lids, and rings.
2. Boil a big pot of water.
3. To each hot jar, add 1 cup of well rinsed grapes (you can also use Muscadines) and 1/2 cup of sugar.* 
4. Fill each jar with boiling water leaving a half inch space at the top.
5. Wipe rims with a clean towel and place hot lids and rings on jars. Swish the jars a little to help the sugar dissolve.
6. Process the jars in a water bath (at a rolling boil) for 20 minutes.
7. Carefully remove the jars and place on a towel. Allow to cool and seal for 12-24 hours before moving to storage.

*You can adjust the amount of sugar. I've seen other recipes that use as little as 1/4 cup and as much as 3/4 cup. 

Allow the juice to sit for about two months so everything can blend. I'm not a patient person so I decided to open a jar tonight after waiting one whole month. I should get an award! I'm surprised that I was able to make it that long. I noticed that it had developed a deeper color and know that it'll darken up the longer it sits. I drained mine through a mesh strainer into another jar and store it in the fridge. It is great! 

I believe that you would be hard pressed to find a simpler recipe for grape juice. Fun Fact: If someone in your house comes down with the stomach bug, start drinking as much grape juice as you can. It is supposed to change the pH in you intestinal tract and have enough vitamins and antioxidants to fight off the germs. If you are already having symptoms, it's too late. Not even grape juice can save you now.   Please let me know if you give this recipe a try and how you like it! 

Canning & Preserving

A few things that I've worked on putting away this summer: strung up green beans 
for drying (leather britches), grape juice, peaches, salsa, and vegetable soup. 

One of my favorite things about Appalachia is the FOOD. Most southerners equate food for love. I've been a foodie long before that was ever a term and you can tell by looking at me that I am well loved. Ahem. We tend to show up with a casserole dish for every kind of occasion: births, baptisms, graduations, reunions, engagements, weddings and even deaths. 

The story of how we obtain and prepare food, like most of Appalachian culture, is a saga of change. The region has evolved from simple self-sufficiency to more of a Wal-Mart, Ingles, fast food culture. 

"Traditional food and cooking in the Appalachian highlands have a strong association with self-sufficiency and hard times. Families in isolated areas were obliged to grow most of what they ate, buying only those products they could not raise, such as coffee and baking soda. Before the advent of food preservation technologies such as canning and freezing, mountaineers had to depend on root cellars or trenches for storing potatoes and cabbage, and the diet in winter could become seriously deficient in vegetables and fruits, leading in the worst cases to scurvy and other nutrient-deficiency diseases."
Encyclopedia of Appalachia

When my Granny was my age, the majority of women she knew canned vegetables, fruits, jellies, etc. I only know a handful of people my age who do. The most common reasons are the lack of time and the belief that it's cheaper just to buy it at the grocery store. I assure you that your time invested will not be in vain and in this case, as in most, cheaper is not better. There is nothing better than opening and cooking a jar of home canned green beans, or anything really, on a cold winter day. It's like a spoonful of summer right there on your plate. 

Of all the things that make up our cultural identities, people seem to cling to food the most. I have recently been more interested in learning to cook and preserve food the way my family has for dozens of years. This summer, I have canned more food from our family garden than I have in the past 16 years that I've been married. It is a lot of work but so rewarding to see those jars fill up and know that my family will eat well after the garden has withered away. 

Do you or anyone you know enjoy canning? What kind of things to you put up for the winter? I look forward to sharing some of the recipes and methods that I've learned this summer!