‘Muscadine Grapes’
Muscadine Grapes – The Indians Ate Them
Of course, ancient Indian inhabitants of North America would most often eat anything that didn’t eat them back.
Ancient inhabitants of North America were notorious about loafing around a lot, picking chiggers, and eating the first deer to come by his tree, but in one respect, proved themselves to be the wisest of men, in that they LOVED eating muscadine grapes!
The Moonlight Indians of north Georgia, an unknown tribe that was killed out by some other tribe back about 4000BCE were great enjoyers of the wild muscadine grapes that grew wild in the woods. Grapes growing wild means that if they grow, fine, and if not fine. The Moonlight Indians never learned that with a little triple 13 fertilizer and a grape trellis that they could have purchased at any hardware store, that they could entice the vines to stay put and produce fine muscadine grapes every year.
One problem with muscadine grapes is that they run all over the place. Chasing them down can be difficult as they can run as much as 100 feet in any direction if disturbed. One day they are there, the next they are at the other end of the hollow. The Indians never could pin them down.
The muscadine grape is native to the southern regions of the United States, so, therefore, by definition, they are an unknown species to yankees who live above the Mason-Dixon line. The upside is that yankees do have Concord grapes, which grow mostly in Concord, so when visiting, be sure to stop at a fruit stand and purchase some.
But, to not know the joys of consuming muscadine grapes is to be like the man who works in a perfume factory, but cannot smell. Muscadine grapes were given to southerners by God, because, even though they must remain poor, at least they have muscadine grapes to eat, when they can catch them.
The long dead Moonlight Indians may have been driven off or eaten, but Muscadine grapes remain. The southern forests are full of them. All you have to do to find one is to take a short walk in the woods with your eyes closed. When you rise up after tripping onto your face, simply look behind you, and you’ll see one of the sneaky vine snaking along the ground.
Whereas many grapes are bitter and untasteful, fit only for making wine, (excepting the Concord grape) the muscadine variety is always sweet and delicious. Indeed, they are fragrant too. They have a strong muscadiny odor than you can smell long before you can see them through the bowed branches in the woods…that is assuming that they are upwind of you. They have a very developed sense of smell and will bolt for the deep brush if the smell you before you smell them.
Muscadine grapes grow best in the humid conditions of the southern climes, where temps rarely go below 0F. Consequently, you rarely find them in the desert. You might find a colony of grape ants buried underneath the shifting sands in the desert, so called because they closely resemble muscadine grapes, but you will not find muscadines. Grape ants were often eaten by indigenous Indian desert tribes. You just grab one, pull off the legs, and pop it into your mouth. This does nothing for the ant’s stinger, so it is advised that you chew very quickly indeed.
Muscadine grapes come in clusters of 3 to 40 succulent grapes. The skin ranges from greenish bronze to to bronze, with the wild varieties being mostly dark purple to nearly black. The juice, though, is a sickly green, and needs a bit of tinting when made into muscadine jelly.
As with all grapes, muscadine grapes need FULL sun. Wild, they are found thriving in most of the deep dark woods of the south, draped on leafy trees. In town, they grow up into town trees, and drop their fruit on top of your automobile, should you decide to park under them. You can ameliorate the effects of rotting muscadine berries on your car hood by maintaining a 24 hour surveillance on them, and quickly eating the fruit as it falls.
Muscadine grapes are propagated mainly in two ways. The first way is rather involved. During the midsummer portion of the season, if you can catch a muscadine vine, immediately bury it under the ground. If you keep it watered, chances are good that it will take root and produce a baby muscadine vine known as Junior. The other way is to entrain yourself in full rain gear and make a careful reconnaissance of the back yard. Fat and sassy muscadine eating birds often take a dump, dropping undigested seeds onto the ground, which greedily sprout to produce more muscadine vines. Of course, if you try the same trick…eating the muscadine and then going to the back yard to deposit the undigested seeds, it never works. It’s something about the unknown qualities of bird guano.
Muscadines are the “secret” grape of the grape jelly world. Just try typing muscadine into your favorite full featured word processor. You will quickly discover that not only does your word processor give an error, but it also does not contain the word, “muscadine” in its lexicon. This proves, conclusively, that the word processor database was populated by yankees who never heard the word muscadine.
To go through life without enjoying the pleasures of the plump and juicy muscadine grape is tragedy beyond compare.