This should make five 8 ounce jars of Spiced Grapes.
This recipe is adapted from Charleston Receipts, the wonderful cookbook from The Junior League of Charleston featuring Southern heritage recipes. This is an old Southern recipe for spiced grapes, here using a mixture of muscadines and scuppernongs from Green Ola Farm at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market. This recipe is updated to include much less sugar (proportions of 25% sugar/75% grapes)and red wine vinegar. It is served today with pork shoulder from Riverview Farms (studded with fresh bay leaves/other herbs and marinated overnight with port)
on H&F Bread Company baguette slices. This shows how tasty the spiced grapes are with sandwiches and sliced meats at holiday times, such as pork, turkey and ham, and venison in particular.
Ingredients
6 pounds grapes (muscadines or scuppernongs)
1.5 pounds sugar
2 ¼ cups red wine vinegar
3 sticks cinnamon
1 ½ tsp. whole cloves
1 tsp. ground mace
- Using your knife, place a cross X mark at the top of the grapes. Squirt out the pulp, then set aside the skins of grapes. Put the pulps with seeds into one bowl and leave the skins in a second bowl. Do not worry about removing all of the pulp from the skins as it is good to leave some on the skins.
- Add the red wine vinegar and ground mace to the pulp, along with the cinnamon and cloves tied in cheesecloth, and cook until the grapes are soft. Remove the spice bag and mash the pulp through a fine sieve, keeping out seeds, leaving just the juice. Put juice in a pot and add the skins. Bring to a boil and add sugar and again, the bag of spices. Cook until thick. This will take a good bit of time – stir the pot frequently and check to be sure the mixture is not sticking. When it is ready, place in 8 ounce jelly jars and process in a hot water bath following Canning 101 directions. Process for twelve minutes.
Contact Martha at marthamcmillin@bellsouth.net or (404) 242-9265 if you have questions about canning or interest in canning classes. She holds a certificate from the Better Process Control School from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Department of Food Science and Technology, which is prescribed by the US Food and Drug Administration and the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.
