Farm Bulletin: The Glory of Seeded Grapes

It could be said that contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm is somewhat of an outlier. He has championed the causes of flint corn and parched green wheat, choosing to grow the ungainly (but delicious) Sibley squash over butternut. Seeded grapes are also on this list, deserving of a cri de coeur.

As we have noted previously, the fruits developed at the New York Experiment Station in Geneva were named after hamlets and county seats in the state. The towns of Canadice, Interlaken, Steuben and Sheridan lend their names to the grapes we sell. This week, we arrive downstate at the big one, the New York Muscat, and like the burg it is named after it is big in the mouth with an outsized character. A hybrid, a melting pot of the best of American grape character with the exotic qualities of the Black Hamburg Muscat. There is a bit of seediness at its center, but that is the essence of its urbane nature, not a blemish. Just as Times Square must be appreciated as part and parcel of the city's complex character, not a blemish.

New York muscat.

We fully understand that some people are truly unable to chew the seeds because of dental work or diverticulitis. But for others, we urge you to approach the seeded grapes fearlessly. The maturation of the seed in a grape triggers biochemical changes in the fruit that are reflected in its flavor and aroma. The seedless grapes we sell are delicious and we enjoy them, but they suffer from a Peter Pan complex in that they are forever lost in childhood, unable to develop their mature character and flavor. To shun grapes because they have seeds is to shut out a whole range flavors that grapes develop. The complex black muscat flavors in the New York Muscat or the delicate rosewater notes in the Swenson White can never develop in a seedless grape.

Price grapes.

The seeds themselves have a wonderful spicy flavor when chewed, a fine counterpoint to the sweet flesh of the fruit. It is also a powerful little nutritional package which has the everything needed to generate a whole new grape vine; ponder that before you spit out the tasty morsel as though it is trash. Sakes alive, people heap praise on the soapy quinoa seed, which only produces a weedy annual, but shrink from a spicy grape seed that will produce a perennial vine than can grow a century of more. Makes no sense at all when you actually think about it. The seeds of Price and New York Muscat are thin skinned, so it is easy to savor the full character of the grape. Someday, the maturation of Portland's palate will include the savory grape seed, appreciating the flavors and nutrition of whole grape as much as whole grains.

Oh, dream on, you naifs of Gaston. This defense of seeded grapes has long been pursued by idealistic grape growers to no avail. Then again, as a friend would remind us, hope springs eternal. That is why we still grow and harvest them where less resolute have torn out their vines in favor of the seedless grapes. We will be ready for the great grape seed awakening.

Farm Bulletin: Autumn in New York

This Sunday concludes Ayers Creek Farm's summer market season, and they will return on the 15th of November for four markets before their 14-year run at the Hillsdale Farmers' Market ends on December 6. This week contributor Anthony Boutard explains the upstate New York heritage of the farm's grapes and notifies us of a tasting event coming up on September 28.

The grapes this week are a touch of "Autumn in New York"—sparing you all a Billy Joel earworm, eh? Interlaken, Canadice, Steuben, Sheridan and New York Muscat are the progeny of the New York Fruit Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, New York, part of Cornell University. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Geneva fruit breeding program was at its peak and as you taste these four varieties, we hope you will be impressed with the sheer breadth of their flavors. Even the apple, a paragon of diversity, doesn't come close to the grape. Interlaken, Canadice (top photo), nameless and Jupiter are chaste, lacking the biochemical events associated with seed development and maturation, so the flavors resulting from seed ripening, especially the bold spicy and floral notes, are missing. That is not entirely a deficit because other flavors are apparent, no longer masked. Be sure to compare the chaste varieties with the fecund varieties, New York Muscat, Steuben, Sheridan and Price. You can see how the seed creates a consistently larger and more complex flavor.

Interlaken.

There is only a teaspoon of farms nationwide that offer such a broad array of such distinctive grape varieties. Due to the early season, this is the first time we have had eight varieties to enjoy as you watch the full eclipse of the "super moon." It is about two hours, so buy enough grapes to savor the convergence of an exceptional season for table grapes and a rare lunar spectacle. And put aside that pointless fussiness about grape seeds, just as you decided that kale is pretty delicious a couple of years ago after shunning it for decades; the seeds are an absolutely delicious dimension to the berry, as is the skin. A few years from now, some researcher will anoint the fecund grape the new superfood and you will feel a whole lot healthier knowing you were ahead of the science.

Sheriden.

Interlaken, Canadice, Steuben, Sheridan and numerous other grapes from that period are named after towns in the Finger Lakes region of New York. It is a wonderful tradition that has fallen by the wayside as the station's public breeding program has stumbled into the morass of "club varieties" and the attendant cheesy commercial names. Club varieties are patented by the breeding program and released to a limited number of growers in order to keep prices high, avoid market saturation and, putatively, to maintain high quality, i.e. uniformity.

Steuben.

There is a tendency to pronounce Interlaken as though it is named after a city in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland. No, the Interlaken of the grape is, as noted, a New York Finger Lake town located nowhere near the Alps and the second syllable is pronounced with a hard "a" as in "lake." Goodness sakes, we don't say Loch Oswego, do we? Well, perhaps on the 25th of January after consuming a few too many wee drams in tribute to the great poet, and forgivably, but other times never. And Canadice is pronounced with a hard "i" as in dice. Don't Eurozone them.

The harvest of beans has started and Angelica, who is in charge of their release, has handed over black turtle, Tarbesque and purgatorio for us to package for this week's market. We have given Borlotti Gaston baby eyes, but she is adamant that they need more time. It is very important to defer to staff on these matters.

Canadice.

We produce our own seed for most of the crops we grow, and in the process we have also worked to improve the quality of those crops, and adapt them to our soils and climate. It is a long process, but the results reinforce our efforts. In first few years of growing Amish Butter, Linda Colwell helped us as we carved rotten kernels off the misshapen ears with the sharp end of a church key in order to salvage enough to sell. That tedium is now history, and this year's ears are magnificent in every respect, the result of repeated selection over a decade. Last year, we were frustrated by problems with the black radish and have started the process of selecting roots that have better frost resistance, and working with Ava Gene's staff we are bringing back the hard-skinned storage melons we used to grow about seven years ago. These are true melons, not winter melons of Asian cuisine.

This year we will feature those melons and the mixed barley at the 2nd Annual Variety Showcase put on by Lane Selman and the Culinary Breeding Network. As amateur breeders, we need a bit more adult supervision, so Lane has assigned two restaurants to keep us in line. Sarah Minnick of Lovely's Fifty Fifty is developing recipes to showcase the qualities of the barley mixture. We tried her "Triple Barley Cookies" yesterday. Made from flaked barley, barley flour and sprouted barley, they are wonderful. Sarah has a roasted barley ice cream in the works to accompany them. Joshua McFadden of Ava Gene's will highlight the melon project called "Ave Bruma" or "behold the winter solstice," from the restaurant's first flavor selection. Later, around the solstice, we will bring in another pile of melons for his staff to taste and again put aside the seed from the best flavored.

Farm Bulletin: Dropping the F-Bomb

No no no, not that f-bomb, the other one that gets bandied about whenever August's heat begins to be mitigated by temperatures in the mid-70s. Though it's hard to argue when that word is dropped by contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm, since his partner, Ma Nature, is pretty much the decider when it comes to changing the seasons.

This weekend marks the sartorial end of summer, and we have had this feeling for a couple of weeks that autumn is close at her shoulder. It is almost as if the fruit is racing to beat the changing weather. As if to underscore this point, we sent our goodbye Chester note to the produce managers and stopped delivering the blackberries on Thursday because the fruit is too fragile to sit in a store display.

Au revoir, Chesters…

This is the earliest end to the Chester season in the 12 years we have been selling fresh market fruit, and the first time that it has fallen in August. We will have some at the market tomorrow, but treat them with care as they are very thin-skinned. Just as autumn leaves change color when the chlorophyll disappears, as the acids and pectins fade from the fruit different flavors come to the fore, and you might discern a hint of resin in the fruit. It is there in the fragrance as well.

Auf wiedersehen, frikeh…

Just as the swallows have departed the farm, the frikeh is gone, too. If time permits, we will grind some corn and start hauling in preserves again. We will have a lot of Astiana tomatoes for those who want to start putting some up for winter. Tomatillos, beets, onions and potatoes will join the cucumbers, garlic and shallots in the mix. The stone fruit will be represented by Prune d'Agen and Mirabelles. The pulses are the chickpeas.

Dean, and grape guy, Harvey Lee Price.

The grape of the moment is Price. We regard it as the Chester of the grapes. This berry came out of the breeding program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. The grape has a complex and obscure lineage, perhaps with a bit of scuppernong or some other muscadine among its genes given its southern ancestry. The grape is named after Harvey Lee Price who was the Dean of Agriculture at the institute from 1908 to 1945. The flavor is complex and the delicate crunchy seeds have a delicious spicy flavor, so don't hesitate to chew them. As those who attended the ramble know, it is also a first class juice grape. Like Chester, Price is of its own kind—there is no confusing it with other grapes.

We will also have some seedless grapes on hand as well, including Jupiter and Interlaken. Along with Price and the plums, good fruit for the kids to take to school, or to nibble on as they ponder their first homework lessons. And let's hope summer keeps autumn at bay for a while longer.