THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Last week we recalled the
mountain ways of
preserving foodstuffs for winter use, with a general look at the
processes of
drying, pickling, barreling, canning and mounding-up to preserve foods
for
winter and early spring use.
Today I invite you to “go
purple” with me
and come along on a trip back in time to the old grape arbor, to
the
creek bank to gather fox grapes, and to that work of making grape juice
and
jelly for winter use. Purple has always been the color for royalty, and
as we
looked at our cans of purple grape juice and the small glasses of
jelly, we
could anticipate a feast fit for royalty supplemented and abetted by
these two
tasty preserved items.
My Grandpa “Bud” Collins had a
grape
arbor. He grew
As a small child, I was allowed
my own
small bucket and a step stool on which I stood to gather grapes.
I
was warned in advance, “Be careful; don’t wiggle or you’ll fall off the
stool!” My aunts gave me instructions on how to reach to the end
of the
cluster and gently pull off the whole bunch of grapes. I would
soon have
my small bucket filled and feel quite an accomplishment at my help with
this
valuable harvest.
Then came another work-play task
I
enjoyed. I was shown how to wash the grapes in pans of clear
water.
We didn’t have running water at that time, so we drew cool buckets from
the
deep well, using the “well bucket,” rope and windlass. We always
washed
the grapes twice to insure they were clean, and always “looked” them to
remove
any insects that might be hiding somewhere on the grapes.
The next step was pulling the
grapes from
the cluster, making sure no stems remained on them. In the pot,
the
grapes were covered with water and put on the Home Comfort wood stove
to
simmer. It was customary to use a wire potato masher to crush the
grapes
as they boiled so that the juice could be readily released from the
hulls. After a proper length of time of cooking, the grapes were
set
aside to cool some, and then they were strained through clean
cheesecloth to
save just the royal purple juice. This was placed in one-half
gallon
Mason fruit jars, sealed with a “rubber ring and can top,” the kind of
sealer
we had for the jars in those days, and the whole cans were submerged
into a hot
water bath until processed—just a few minutes, maybe ten, for
juice. If
the juice was too tart, some sugar was added to the juice in each jar
and
stirred to dissolve, before processing.
When the sealed jars cooled,
they were
taken to the cellar and stored on the shelves there awaiting winter
use. What a treat it was to get a half-gallon of grape
juice and
taste its tangy goodness in the dead of winter. How pretty the
jars
looked, sitting in their assigned place in the well-ordered
cellar.
This royal-purple drink took its honored place beside the other many
jars of
preserved food from summer’s bounty.
Some of the grapes were turned
into jelly
or jam. When the juice was made, it was matched, cup-for-cup with
white
sugar and boiled until it “jelled.” Sure-Jell, which has been a
marvelous
find for jelly-making in the latter half of the twentieth century, was
never
heard of when I was young and helping with the jelly-making. We
simply
boiled the sugar-juice combination until a drop of it into water in a
cup would
indicate to the practiced eye that the jelly was ready to put into
sterilized
small jars and sealed over with melted wax to await those future treats
with
jelly and butter on a hot biscuit. Yum, yum. Can’t you just
imagine
how that tasted on a snowy morning in December or January?
Fox Grape harvest came in the
fall.
It was harder to gather these grapes, for they were wild and grew on
vines that
had climbed trees in our forest, especially along branch or creek
banks.
My younger brother Bluford became an expert fox grape gatherer, for he
could
“skinny up” a tree, with a bucket strapped about his waist by a belt,
ready to
pluck those grapes from their tall hiding places. We would take
two or
three buckets on our treks to find and gather fox grapes. Once
home again
with our treasure from the forest, the same processes as with Grandpa’s
Concord
grapes was followed to make juice and jelly from these wild
grapes. They
had a tartness that distinguished them from the tame
I was age fourteen when my
mother passed
away. I found myself of necessity having to be “chief cook and
bottle
washer”—as well as canner and preserver—around the Dyer
household.
Looking back now, I often wonder how I was able to do adult work and
still go
to school. It wasn’t easy, but I had been taught well:
“Whatever
thy hands find to do, do it with thy might” and “Work is honorable; do
it to
the best of your ability and without complaining.”
Every time I purchase grape
juice in
today’s modern super market or get a jar of Smucker’s grape jelly or
jam from
the grocer’s shelf, I think back to those days of yore when I thought
nothing
of gathering grapes, processing them, and enjoying the products of my
labors,
that mountain way of “putting up” against the hunger and cold of winter
months.
Updated September
26,
2009
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