Store-bought grape jelly is okay, I guess, but it pales in comparison to the tangy taste of summer grape jelly. This variety, scientifically known as Vitis aestivalis, is the most common native grape in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Every autumn from late September to mid-October my wife Elaine and I prowl the backroads of Botetourt County, Virginia searching for this fruit.
Although we experience little human competition for the purple berries, they are a major source of nourishment for wildlife in our region. I have actually observed wild turkeys, tenuously perched on grape arbors, dining on summer grapes. They are also important foods for such birds as grouse, quail, cardinals, catbirds, brown thrashers, and many of the songbirds that migrate through these mountains come fall. Such mammals as deer, raccoons, opossums, and skunks favor the fruit as well.
We pick summer grapes in early fall because we relish the tartness of the berries then, believing that is when the right amount of sweetness and tang exists. But I have gathered them as late as mid-November as a nourishing snack while I rambled through a woodlot. By mid-December, these grapes have metamorphosed into raisins. Though not edible for us humans by then, wildlife will devour them well into January.
Best way to enjoy summer grape jelly? How about as a topping for homemade brown bread, hot from the oven.
Bruce and Elaine Ingram will profile a different wild edible every month. For more information on their book Living the Locavore Lifestyle, contact them bruceingramoutdoors@gmail.com
