Head to 4M Vineyards—It’s Concord Time!

Oh, joy! The concord grapes are ready at 4M Vineyards! You can buy 3-lb. boxes, 20-lb. half bushels, and 40-lb. whole bushels of them at excellent prices through about the end of October. (The grape season usually starts in early to mid August and extends into October.)



Most people make jelly or juice from concords, but I like to make them into grape pies, tarts, and kuchens, and “pickled grapes” (which is really a spiced grape jam, akin to pickled peaches). The latter is a favorite of Dad’s.



Right now, I’m giving you links to 4M’s website and Facebook page—look at those for official info and updates on what’s currently available.

During grape harvest season, they’re open 7 days a week, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. When it gets to be late October and the grape crop is finishing, to make sure to call ahead to make sure they’re open: 573-265-3340.

Once there’s a hard frost, that’s the end of the grapes: 4M typically has them available for about a week after the frost, but then that’s it. So call ahead if it’s late October.



4M Vineyards and Farms is located at 20670 State Route KK, which is 4 miles east of St. James, Missouri. Where they’re at, Route KK, actually old Route 66, runs along the south side of I-44 like an outer road, and 4M and some of its vineyards are plainly visible from the interstate.



If you’re on I-44, get off at the Highway 68/St. James exit, go south, and turn left (east) at the first stoplight (James Blvd., which becomes Route KK). (Often, people actually park on the shoulder of the interstate and walk up the grassy slope and across Route KK, but that’s not recommended!)

This, by the way, is the Ozark Highlands/St. James/Rosati grape-growing region of Missouri, a distinct American Viticultural Area (appellation) designated by the U.S. government (TTB). For more about that, visit the St. James Winery on the north side of the interstate.



Okay: Of all the places to purchase grapes in Missouri, why am I telling you about 4M Vineyards?

Because they’re the real thing, they’re local, they’re friendly, and their products, though unpretentiously presented, are deserving of the highest praise. It’s been a family business since 1984. My blog has always been about things like that.

One look at 4M’s annual letter and price list says it all. (Seriously, click on the link, and you’ll find an informational, entertaining announcement about 4M Vineyards’ progress and offerings this year. You’ll especially enjoy the story of the grapevine-chomping deer, the air cannon . . . and the neighbors!)





I love 4M Vineyards, and I deeply admire Mike and Jody Rippelmeyer, who own it. There are incredibly good reasons why their vineyards are expanding, why their preserves and baked goods are so delicious, and why a visit to their market is so pleasant.

We always make an annual trip to 4M! It’s worth it. I need my nice big box of concords!

I process (deseed) grapes in 3-cup batches, put them in quart-size freezer zip bags, and freeze them—each is enough for a pie or a kuchen, or a pint or so of pickled grapes.



But at 4M, we can also start our Christmas shopping: They sell a glorious variety of homemade jellies, jams, and other preserves that you can’t purchase just anywhere. Think how much your impoverished friends who live in big cities will love these goodies!



I mean, seriously! Here is a PARTIAL list (partial, because I ran out of room on my notepad!):

• Apple butter; amaretto apple butter
• Blackberry jelly
• Cantaloupe marmalade
• Catawba grape jam and jelly
• Concord grape jam, jelly, and juice
• Corn cob jelly
• Cucumber pickles (various kinds)
• Elderberry jelly and jam
• Green tomato chutney
• Jalapeno jelly (several kinds)
• Niagara grape jam and jelly
• Pear jelly; pear honey
• Pineapple jelly
• Pumpkin butter; pumpkin pie jelly
• Relishes of various kinds
• Salsas of various kinds
• Tomato jam and jelly
• Wild plum jelly and jam
• Wine jelly (this is incredibly delicious!)
• Zucchini pickles (various kinds)

—Wowsa! Doesn’t that sound tempting? Their shelves and shelves of preserves make me feel proud, and I didn’t lift a finger. And yes, they have samples for you to try.



And they make these goodies themselves—this isn’t just shipped in from Pennsylvania or someplace.



They also sell homemade banana bread, zucchini bread, pumpkin bread, and apple chip bread. (Just typing this, my mouth is watering.)

And they also make and sell grape pie—which is my favorite kind of pie. Not many people in Missouri make grape pie, but it’s well worth the extra effort. It is not only exquisitely delicious, but also a joy to behold, being a glorious, deep, royal purple.

Local honey and low-priced, top-notch fresh fruits and vegetables round out the edible bounty.

There’s also a fun selection of antiques and collectables, with an emphasis on cooking supplies. (Christmas is coming; and you know you could always use another cookie sheet, baking pan, or casserole dish!)



And although they don’t make and sell wine themselves, they sell wine-making supplies, including a selection of yeasts and (of course) bulk grapes! You can buy grape plants, too.



This is the best time of year to be in Missouri, and while you’re driving around enjoying the crisp air and scenery, stop at 4M and get some concords, while they last!

4M Vineyards and Farms
21000 State Route KK
St. James, MO 65559
573-265-3340

• Farm stand is typically open Aug. 7 to Nov. 1
• Opening depends on ripening; closing depends on how long the crop holds.
• Call ahead in early August or late October, to ensure they are open.
• Open daily, 7 days a week, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Concord Grape Pie Recipe

This is a relatively basic recipe, but it seems little known in Missouri. But now that Missouri’s grape industry is such big guns, it’s time we learned how to make grape pies.




Concord grape pies are delicious and deserve to be more common than they are, and making this pie will prove it to you. (I’m still groovin’ on our beautiful, glorious cornucopia of Ohio Concords!)

I’ve mentioned this recipe before, and I’ve told you the story of how I started making it back in college. It was a labor of love!

I learned how to make it the hard way. The biggest deal with cooking with Concords is processing them—getting the seeds out! (Most people don’t care to eat a crunchy pie!)

Below, I tell you how to process the grapes in record time. What I usually do is buy a big batch of grapes at once—they’re only in season for a short while. I measure them out into preset quantities (usually 3 cups), process, put into freezer zip-bags, squeeze the air out, and freeze flat so it doesn’t take them long to thaw. Grape pies are easy to make once you’ve processed the grapes!

My recipe is not groundbreaking; it’s based on a recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (1953, p. 308) (a delightful facsimile edition of the vintage 1953 book was recently published); plus, I’ve altered it per advice I got from my friend’s mother, and I’ve even made a few modifications myself.

And sure, you can try flour or tapioca as alternative thickeners, but good luck with that. I’ve found corn starch, and plenty of it, works the best.

P.S. Don’t forget to have some vanilla ice cream around so you can serve it à la mode!




Concord Grape Pie

3 cups of Concord grapes, including skins, processed to remove seeds (see below)
1 cup sugar
dash salt
dash nutmeg
1 tsp. lemon juice
3 rounded tablespoons corn starch
pastry for a 9-inch double-crust pie
2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Bring grape pulp and skins to a boil and turn off heat; stir in salt, nutmeg, and lemon juice. In a separate small bowl, add a ladleful of this mixture to the corn starch and stir to dissolve the corn starch; add this to the rest of the grape mixture and stir to combine.

Roll out pie dough and arrange bottom crust in pie pan. Fill with grape mixture. Dot pieces of butter over the filling, and arrange top crust, cutting holes or slits in top. (Brush top with lightly beaten egg white and/or sprinkle with sugar, whatever you like to do.)

Bake at 400 degrees for up to 40 or 50 minutes. Keep an eye on it; if the edge starts to brown too fast, use a pie crust protector. Having a large piece of foil beneath the pie to catch potential drips is also a good idea.

It’s done when it’s done!




Processing Seeded Grapes (Such as Concords)

I have tried to deseed grapes any number of ways, from picking the seeds out by hand, one by one, with a pointy knife (not recommended!), to using a sieve . . . to my current method. It requires a food mill, which might seem a bit expensive, but you’ll be amazed at how many uses you’ll find for it.

Another note: consider your eventual use of the grapes. If you will want a very smooth consistency (say, for jam), you might chop or even purée the skins before adding them back in to the mix.

1. Pluck grapes from stems into measuring cup, measuring quantity desired for recipe use (I use 3-cup quantities for most recipes).

2. Rinse grapes in colander and wash your hands.

3. Get comfortable with two “bowls” in front of you: one a small saucepan, the other a plain bowl. Slip the skins from the grapes over the saucepan; the grape “guts” fall into the saucepan. Drop the empty skins into the other bowl. Do the whole batch. Listen to good music! I like jazz.

4. Over medium heat, cook the grape “guts,” stirring often, simmering until the pulp breaks down and seeds separate out.

5. Pour pulp, juice, and seeds into a food mill positioned over a bowl and process to remove seeds. (This is much easier than the alternative: trying to press the pulp through a wire strainer with a spoon. Or you can try using one of these old-style conical aluminum thingies—or on second thought, maybe not.)

6. Reunite reserved grape skins with processed pulp and juice; stir to combine.

7. Your processed grapes are now ready for your recipe—or you can freeze them at this point for convenient later use (I freeze each batch flat in a freezer zip-bag, squeezing all the air out).

Peel Me a Grape

How I do love weird pies! Of course, it seems that almost any pie that’s not apple, peach, cherry, blueberry, or cafeteria-style chocolate cream is “out of the ordinary.” Considering all the wonderful possibilities, the sameness is kind of sad.

Tonight I’m reflecting on the good ol’ Concord grape pie, which you rarely see. At least, not around here. I had never heard of grape pie until about 1988, which is when I made—and tasted—my first-ever Concord grape pie.




The occasion was that I was dating someone whose mother used to make grape pies, back in the forties and fifties. Mrs. S had made her legendary grape pies in a tiny town in northwestern Ohio, and I came to suspect that grape pies must simply be more common in northern Ohio, where folks grow more Concords than we do. That, or maybe women were more willing to "peel grapes" back then.




So after hearing my paramour glorify the exquisite joys of Concord grape pie, I decided I needed to learn to make it. I phoned Mrs. S up in Ohio for instructions, and I could almost hear her shrugging: “Well, you know . . . you just slip the skins off the grapes and get the seeds out, then add some sugar and flour, or tapioca, or cornstarch—whatever—Oh! and add some nutmeg, too.” Aha! Nutmeg’s the secret ingredient. (Many recipes suggest lemon juice and/or grated lemon peel, too.)




Wow, I remember that phone conversation so well! But it was long ago; Mrs. S has been gone nearly twenty years. Times change.

But during that time with my pie-hungry flame, I got pretty good at making Concord grape pies. Of course, I received a great deal of encouragement. And it was one thing I could do right.

Concords are available only in the fall, usually just in September, but I soon learned to buy a quantity, process them to remove the seeds, and freeze them so I could earn extra “girlfriend points” when they were out of season—for instance, as a February birthday-pie.

Honestly, who has the time to make pies? I was in grad school and working. During those years, grape pies were about the only ones I ever made, and I did it almost entirely for the “girlfriend points” in that troubled relationship.

Today, I find it ironic that grape pie—so tedious and time-consuming—has become the pie most people request of me. It just figures.




“Show me you love me . . . Hop when I holler, Skip when I snap; When I say ‘do it,’ jump to it . . . Peel me a grape.”




Three cups, enough for one pie, is about 240 grapes, for your information, each individually plucked from the bunch and hand skinned. And then there’s the cooking and processing to remove the seeds, all before you even think about rolling out any pastry.

I should have grown a backbone much sooner. But my pies are good.




Although that relationship couldn’t last, the reputation I developed among friends and family for making grape pies did. So I came to have at least one thing in common with good Mrs. S, who had peeled her grapes for her own famous pies all those years ago. Funny.






With my fame for grape pies, then, it’s no surprise that my mother, so generous, who loves to shop and give us things, dropped off a package of Concords she’d found at the grocery store this week. And so once again another one of my “signature” grape pies will be born.

. . . Now I can see why mom always warned me to be careful about my reputation.




(Here is what I did with these grapes, by the way; and here is a fun, retro alternative to the traditional grape pie.)

Op Op Anniversary

I just realized that the Op Op is a year old now!

So, what do you think? Are we having fun yet?

To celebrate, I made us a sweet potato pie. I wish I could give a piece to every one of you. Thank you for reading, commenting, and helping to make this so much fun.

We didn’t have any birthday candles around, so I used a fru-fru mixed-drink umbrella instead. What the heck!

 

Here’s the recipe, which I acquired many years ago from an old flame, who adored “weird pies.” It might originally have come from a copyrighted source, because I can’t remember where she got it from. If it is from a cookbook somewhere, then whoever wrote it needs to adjust the cooking time and temperature as I have, so the crust doesn’t turn into mush on the bottom.

Sweet Potato Pie

2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes

3 eggs (well-beaten)

1/2 cup sugar (white)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 stick butter

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1 small can evaporated milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mash butter with potato and add sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk, and eggs. Fill pastry shell and cook in 400-degree oven for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and cook for approximately 25 minutes more. Check on it to make sure the crust isn’t getting too brown; cover the crust with foil if necessary. Pie is done when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

 

How I Do Love Weird Pies

Two posts ago, I told you about Catholic church picnics and shared some photos of last month's picnic (church supper) at St. Thomas, a community south of Jeff City on Route B, between Osage Bluff and the town of Meta (pronounced "MEAT-uh," by the way, so don't be getting any ideas based on highfalutin Greek and Latin etymology).

Anyway . . . I had a few pictures left over from that day that I wanted to share with you. They kinda deserve their own post, because of how special this thing was. Well . . . I thought it was special, at least.

See, one of the things I love about these church suppers is the dessert table. You find all kinds of desserts that you simply cannot buy anywhere else. Pies, in particular.

I just adore "weird pies," and at church suppers, I've had gooseberry pie, elderberry, squash, blackberry (as in, made from real fresh blackberries), rhubarb, rhubarb cream, mock apple, applesauce, black walnut . . . Man, oh, man.

So at St. Thomas, among the pies they so carefully organized (by type! look at that photo on the earlier post!), was one I'd never even heard of. Here's a closeup photo. See if you can tell what it is.



Hmmm: A crumb crust; the specks in the filling are cinnamon, plus (no doubt) some ground cloves, nutmeg, and/or pie spice. But the overall matrix, the goo? It was really sweet, and something like apple.

A little sticky, and very moist.

. . . And slightly fibrous.

Hmmm. . . . Guessed yet?

There were some green pieces in it . . .

One more hint: It's a vegetable that can be very, very abundant this time of year.

Got it yet--?

. . . Here's the dorsal view!




I love how they tagged them so people could know what kind of pie it was!

Grape Cream Pie

Here it is; I’d been wanting to try this recipe for a while, and yeah, it was pretty darn good. It was perfect on Memorial Day, when we didn’t want to have the oven on for long, and the chill of this dessert was especially welcome.

It’s a lot like lemon meringue pie, only topped with whipped cream instead of meringue, and made with grape juice instead of being flavored entirely with lemon. And there are no eggs.

An old friend of mine got me hooked on grape pies—the traditional kind, double-crust, made with concords that have been skinned and deseeded, and then you add the skins back to the deseeded pulp—which is a whole lot of labor. This following grape pie is much simpler but is just as gloriously purple.

It’s so simple, it could easily be one of those “first recipes” a young person learns.

As I mentioned in the previous post, this recipe comes from the 1949 edition of The Good Housekeeping Cook Book, ed. Dorothy B. Marsh (New York: Rinehart, 1949), page 730.

The comments in brackets are mine; sorry, I can’t resist it.

Grape Cream Pie

1/2 cup granulated sugar
6 tablesp. cornstarch
1/4 teasp. salt
1 tablesp. grated lemon rind
1/2 teasp. cinnamon
2 1/2 cups grape juice
1 tablesp. lemon juice
1 baked 9˝ pie shell [the book gives that recipe on p. 727]
1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped [the basic deal; freeze/chill the bowl and the beaters, and just before serving, whip it with a tablespoon of sugar and a few drops of vanilla]

Combine first 5 ingredients in saucepan [which is to say, blend together the dry ingredients first; the cornstarch will mix in better with the grape juice if you do]. Stir in grape juice and cook, stirring, over low heat until a small amount mounds slightly when dropped from a spoon [this cornstarch transformation is way cool, if you’ve never done this before; it’s, like, “Wow, man”]. Add lemon juice. Cool; chill until very thick. Meanwhile, make and bake pie shell; cool. Spoon chilled grape mixture into pie shell; chill. Top with cream. Makes 1 9˝ pie.

Now, I don’t know why you couldn’t make the pie, chill it thoroughly, and then slather a meringue on it and toast the meringue peaks quickly in the oven, then rechill, thus making “Grape Meringue Pie.” But the whipped cream was good, too. (It always is, isn’t it?)

You’ll have to try this recipe and let me know what you think.

Next, I plan to use this same technique using some other juice or beverage. Apricot juice, perhaps? Or fresh carrot juice, plus spices? That would be neat. Or do you think elderberry wine would work? . . . Ooh la la.