"grapes" news and stories

Black widow spider. Photo: Ian Waldie, Getty Images.

Talk about sour grapes!

Toronto resident Brett James was reaching into his refrigerator to grab his wife a snack when he found a black widow spider lurking under the bag of grapes he'd purchased at the local Whole Foods Market, the Toronto Star reports. He thinks the poisonous spider came in with the grapes.

"When I lifted the bag, the spider was underneath, just sitting on top of another bag in the refrigerator," James tells Slashfood. "I wasn't sure exactly what it was, and I had heard stories before, so something was in the back of my head that it could be serious."

He lifted the spider out of the fridge on a paper towel and put it in a plastic container. After poking around on the Internet, he said he identified it as a black widow, a spider whose venom can cause muscle cramps, tremor and chest pain.

Grapes on the vine. Photo: roblisameehan, Flickr.

• Baking a grape tranforms its taste and texture in a variety of recipes.
• The USDA has announced a new "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative, connecting consumers with local and regional food networks.
• Considering kids' lunch the night before can save them from the oft-banned PB&J.
• Rum isn't just good for cocktails -- it gives chicken a whole new island twist with Rum Chica Rum skewers.
• The color purple: picking and cooking purple produce, such as luscious basil and bell peppers.
• With ready-made crepes, dinner can come together in half an hour, with a recipe for Chicken Dijon Crepes.

Foodies are familiar with the term "farmstead," which implies grown and made by the same hand. Farmstead goat cheese, for example, is made by the same person or people who raise and milk the goats. Now importer Anthony Nicalo is bringing the farmstead concept to the wine world with his Farmstead Wines, working with European grape growers and winemakers to source the best handcrafted wines for distribution in Canada and soon the U.S.

In French wine terms, a rough equivalent for "farmstead" would be vigneron, which refers to the farmer and winemaker as one and the same. That's not always the case over there or over here: often farmers farm, and winemakers winemake, sourcing their grapes from elsewhere. Going back to the cheese example, that would be the same as a cheesemaker getting milk from another source and then using it to make his own cheese brand.

Not that there's anything wrong with that method. It also has been used for generations, and when you're a budding winemaker without the resources to score ever-more-expensive vineyard land, it's sometimes the only option to realize a dream. But Nicalo believes that the farmstead concept, whether in food or wine (he's a trained chef), creates a better end product because the one person, the creator and grower of the food or wine, has control over the process from the very beginning. He calls his winemakers artisans.

Continue reading "Farmstead Wine - Wine of the Week" after the jump.

Yesterday I wrote about muscadine grapes, which include a coppery green variety known as the scuppernong. Well they've been on my mind all week. On Tuesday, I stood in a friend's mother's backyard around sundown, fending off mosquitoes as I plucked heavy handfuls of scuppernongs from the musky, sweet vinegar-smelling vines.

Tomorrow I will make scuppernong cake, my new favorite early fall treat. I came up with this Southern take on rustic Tuscan vintners cake last September - slightly cooked scuppernongs tucked, skins and all, into a light, olive-oil scented batter. I like to serve this cake with fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.



Recipe after the jump:

Muscadines are a type of thick-skinned grape native to the Southeastern U.S., where they grow rampant on suburban arbors in early fall. They're as taut and round as vending machine gumballs, ranging in hue from a deep, wine-y purple to a flecked coppery green (these ones are called scuppernongs). Their skins are thick, almost leathery, and when you bite down on them the gummy interior pops out into your mouth. The skins are nicely acidic (some people spit them out, but what a waste!) and the insides are cool and sweet and very fruity, though pitted with two to four bitter seeds. All in all, muscadines bear about as much resemblance to standard seedless grapes as kiwis to cabbages.

Muscadines are commonly fermented into a sweet wine, or boiled down to jelly. In North Carolina, muscadine pie - grape innards cooked with sugar and lemon juice to make a soft, jammy filling - is an old-fashioned treat.