Farm Bulletin: What's In a Name?

In this Bulletin, contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm contemplates the naming schemes of fruits and vegetables, for the most part adhering to geographical references at his farm. And speaking of table grapes, as he so eloquently does below, a selection of the farm's finest will be available along with Astiana tomatoes, tomatillos, Striped German slicers, plums, dry goods and other notions at the farm on Saturday, Sept. 7th, Sunday, Sept. 15th, and Saturday, Sept. 21st between 1 and 5 pm. To order 18-pound lugs of Astiana tomatoes, e-mail Anthony directly.

Traditionally, fruits and vegetables were named either descriptively, with a geographic epithet, or after the plant breeder. We have hewed to the geographic tradition with the "Arch Cape" chicory and the "Astiana" tomato. We are working on a new chicory selection and the project is named "Bald Peak." Sometimes the reference is a bit oblique. The "Peace, No War" corn shares its initials with the region to which it is adapted, the Pacific Northwest. Our "Ava Bruma" melon is descriptive, employing the Latin for “behold the solstice.” Alas, modern breeders are suckers for cute, insubstantial names, or worse.

Jupiter grape.

The "Jupiter" table grape is an example. Naming such a voluptuous fruit, linguistically and biologically a feminine organ, after the male Roman god of war is incredibly stupid and tacky. So callow, makes one seethe.  That said, the Rogers and Hart musical "By Jupiter" (top photo) was adapted from the book "The Warrior Husband." The comic premise is the Amazon women go out to battle under their queen Hippolyta. The story takes the perspective of husband who stays at home. The main character, Sapiens ("wise" in Latin), was played by Ray Bolger. Three songs from the musical made their way into the American songbook, including "Wait Till You See Her," "Nobody’s Heart Belongs to Me" and "Ev’rything I’ve Got."

The last was one of Blossom Dearie’s standards, well-suited to her impish delivery and fine piano playing. Here is the original version with Bolger and Benay Venuta.

There is also a beguiling version with Betty Garrett and Milton Berle. Makes us want to rename the grape "Sapiens," a more apt name for a noble and contemplative fruit such as the grape. But, then again, if named Sapiens we would not have thought about a now-obscure Rogers and Hart musical from 1942, the last and longest-running result of their work together.

Farm Bulletin: Letters from Jail, Grapes and Literature

The crops grown at Ayers Creek Farm by contributor Anthony Boutard and his wife, Carol, have inspired Portland's chefs for years, including a rum raisin ice cream and raisin grappa ice cream, using the raisins described below—creations of the amazing Sarah Minnick at Lovely's Fifty-Fifty. You can find these raisins, dried beans, popcorn and the farm's other products at two upcoming open farm weekends. Details at the end of this post.

Carol’s father gave to each of his children a copy of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Glimpses of World History. The “glimpses" were a series of letters he wrote to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, during the years he was jailed by the British. As Carol’s father noted, it is a history from the perspective of a culture well-established and mature long before “Western Civilization.” Anthony grabbed the book to read on the way to Terra Madre [the Slow Food gathering of small-scale food producers] in Turin. In one of the letters, Nehru noted that the provinces of Kandahar and Herat are famous for their grapes, pomegranates and melons. He was pleasantly surprised upon arriving in Turin to meet two grape farmers from Herat, and taste their many different varieties of raisins.

Rum raisin ice cream at Lovely's Fifty-Fifty.

That encounter inspired us to push on the idea of growing table grapes. Funny how chance encounters shift one’s thinking. It was a photo from Uzbekistan of melons in storage on the Big Picture Agriculture site many years ago that prompted us to contemplate growing storage melons in a serious fashion. We are trialing two more types this year.

Herat and Kandahar have grown and traded grapes for millennia. With the rise of Islam about 500 years ago, wine production evolved into raisin production. At its peak, Afghanistan produced 10 percent of the world’s raisins. There is a huge diversity to be found there, and they have 24 different raisins that are sold commercially, with dozens more of the backyard variety. Raisins are important in rice dishes of the region. Consequently, there is great interest in rebuilding raisin production.

Laying the grapes on racks in September.

Recalling the beautiful green raisins displayed at Terra Madre, we started thinking about table grapes, both fresh and dried. Apparently, modern Afghan raisin growers dip the grapes in various chemicals to stop the oxidation of tannins in the dried grape, stopping the fruit from turning the raisins brown, not exactly in the realm of organic agriculture. Perhaps the original “green raisins” of old, before the expedient of a chemical dip, may have been simply demi-sec grapes (top photo), fruit on their way to becoming raisins.

Harvested at the end of September, the Lakemont grapes have been slowly drying, concentrating their flavor, sugar and acidity to a wonderful effect. Most grape varieties available to us would collapse in the process. However, Lakemont is particularly well-adapted for this post-harvest improvement, which is similar to that used to produce the sweet Italian wine Vin Santo. The grape is one the releases from the breeding program in Geneva, New York, and is named after a hamlet in western New York, consistent with naming protocol of that breeding program. The author and composer Paul Bowles is buried in the Lakemont Cemetery.

* * *

From Anthony:

"We are planning a couplet of open days on November 10th and 11th. Our hours will be from 3-5 pm. We will have only a smattering of preserves available at this time. We will be processing the fruit over the following week and are planning another open day couplet on the 1st and 2nd of December. As a reminder, for those who find the journey out to the farm difficult, Barbur World Foods and Rubinette Produce, carry robust selections of our beans and grains in their produce departments. Providore probably has a better selection of preserves on the shelf than we do at the moment. We will have the full complement of our beans, grains and mustard seed. We will also have 'Ave Bruma' melons, escarole, beets, large white onions and demi-sec Lakemont grapes."

Photo of Lakemont grapes by Anthony Boutard. Rum raisin ice cream from Sarah Minnick's Instagram feed.

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.

Salmon Sings with Roasted Local Grapes

Working the sorting line during the grape harvest one year, one of the great pleasures was picking up a beautiful cluster off the belt as it glided by and chomping into it. The mouthful of grapes exploded with juice, some of it invariably running down my chin, and the full flavor of the wine-to-be filled my head. If you haven't eaten grapes this way, you owe it to yourself to do it at least once, with a cluster of wine grapes or some from a neighbor's vines. (Ask first!)

Canadice grapes.

My friend and neighbor Ann is one of those avid grape-growers, with vines trailing along the arbor her husband built next to their driveway. The variety she grows is Canadice, a pinkish seedless grape named for Canadice Lake in the Finger Lakes of New York State. (Read what contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm has to say about this grape and how to pronounce its name.)

The grape harvest this year in Oregon came at least a month ahead of schedule, and coincided nicely with the run of coho salmon that were gleaming in fishmonger's cases around town. With her grape vines bearing scads of clusters—it's been a very good harvest this year despite the lack of rain—Ann looked up a simple recipe she'd seen in Sunset magazine that called for roasting grapes and fillets of salmon, then serving them on a bed of dressed arugula.

Lucky for us she also thought to invite Dave and I for dinner, so now I can share her brilliant inspiration with you. And, note to cooks, please try to use local grapes from the farmers' market or a store that carries local produce with this recipe. The giant red or green grapes in bags at the supermarket just don't have the intensity of flavor that'll make this dish sing. And if it's okay with the farmer, don't forget to do the chomp test (or, barring that, just taste one or two)!

Salmon with Roasted Grapes and Arugula Salad
Adapted from Sunset Magazine, Oct. 2015

1/4 c. pine nuts
4 salmon fillets (each 6 oz. and about 1/2 in. thick), pin bones removed
2 c. seedless grapes
6 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 1/2 tsp. finely chopped fresh thyme leaves, divided
3/4 tsp. fine sea salt, divided
1/2 tsp. pepper, divided
2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 small garlic clove, minced
6 c. loosely packed baby arugula
Lemon wedges (optional)

Preheat broiler with a rack set about 3" from heat.

Toast pine nuts in a medium frying pan over medium-low heat until golden, stirring often, 4 to 7 minutes. Pour into a bowl and let cool.

Set salmon and grapes on a rimmed baking sheet, leaving some space around fish. Drizzle everything with 1 tbsp. oil and sprinkle with 1 tsp. thyme and 1/4 tsp. each salt and pepper. Turn fish and grapes to coat, setting salmon skin side down if fillets have skin.

Broil until fish is still a bit rare in center (cut to test), 4 to 6 minutes; fillets will continue to cook as they sit. Grapes should be a bit wrinkled; if not, transfer fish to a plate and broil grapes a few minutes longer. Sprinkle fish and grapes with remaining 1/2 tsp. thyme.

In a small bowl, whisk together remaining 5 Tbsp. oil, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper with the vinegar, mustard and garlic until emulsified. In a large bowl, toss arugula with half of pine nuts and a third of balsamic dressing.

Arrange salad on a platter. Set salmon on top, overlapping pieces a bit. Gently combine remaining pine nuts with grapes; spoon grape mixture over fish. Serve with remaining dressing on the side and lemon wedges if you like.

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: Escape from Vineland

Contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm relates a tale of intrigue, loss, a narrow escape from certain death and, finally, redemption. What more could you ask from a grape?

The late Lon Rombaugh was amiably acquisitive when it came to fruit, especially grapes. Parsing his 2006 catalogue, we noticed he highlighted a new entry called 'Veepie', a quirky name that captured our eye. Veepie was not in his book on grape growing and he had not suggested it when he advised us on our vineyard selections. The entry noted that it is a "tart grape especially for pies." All this and a quirky name, too. We purchased 15 cuttings and rooted them. At the lower end of the vineyard, they grew with little attention for a few years.

Table grapes have an elven quality; we savor them at the moment, tarrying in the vineyard on a late afternoon enjoying the range of flavors that breeders have teased forth. Wine grapes are tasty with subtle differences, but their character develops after living underground in a dwarfish fashion, deprived of the sun for a long spate. Missing in the modern mix of commercially available varieties is the hafling, or hobbit, of grapes, a culinary fruit domestic in character, whose flavor opens up with the heat and knife of the kitchen.

John Evelyn.

At one time, these grapes were an essential part of the kitchen garden. For example, John Evelyn notes that a special grape was used for verjus. Recipes from the Middle East, Persia and the Caucasus specify sour grapes as a matter of course. Yes, unripe table or wine grapes are sour, but they lack the flavor gained in the ripening process. Veepie is one of the few grapes, at least on this side of the Atlantic, that is a true culinary grape, tartly ripe and conveniently seedless.

There is a parallel here with apples. Cox's Orange Pippin or Spitzenburg are great dessert apples overwhelmed in a pie, whereas no one could ever relish the bitter, tannic cider apples such as Kingston Black or Yarlington Mill outside of the barrel. On the other hand, Rhode Island Greening, Northern Spy and Reinette Gris are excellent culinary apples for pies, tarts and sauces, yet on the tart side for enjoying out of the hand. Notably, people do not select an unripe apple for a pie, and thus it should be with grapes.

Vineland Experiment Station, early 20th C.

Veepie is officially 52131, a numbered seedling originating from a cross pollination made in 1952 by Oliver A. Bradt at the Vineland Experiment Station in Ontario, Canada. The mother plant was Seibel 8357, also known as Colobel. It is a teiturier, a type of grape with intense pigmentation used in small quantities to strengthen the color of wine. Albert Seibel was a French grape breeder who developed a large number high quality hybrids between American and the European wine grapes, seeking resistance to a pest called Phylloxera that had devastated the vineyards of Europe. The pollen-bearing parent was Bronx Seedless, a highly regarded but temperamental table grape prone to splitting, that is still cultivated in California. Bronx is also a hybrid with a seed parent of American lineage and Thompson seedless, a raisin grape dating back to the Ottoman Empire, also known as Sultanina.

The resulting grape has the intense pigmentation from its teiturier ancestor combined with the seedless trait and propensity for splitting, albeit much attenuated, from its pollen parent. It produces unfilled seeds which confer an additional pleasant component to its texture. As you look at the preserves, you will notice the little brown seedlets. The berry's tartness is it defining characteristic. Sugars and other soluble solids are measured using a refractometer, yielding a number given in degrees Brix (°Brix). When we harvested the grape for preserves this year, it measured 11° fully ripe. The Canadice grapes harvested at the same time for fresh eating were at 26°. As a reference, a lemon is around 8°. In its flavor, the European ancestry is evident. Bradt, as well as Seibel, selected against the "foxiness" that marked grapes with pure American lineage.

Veepie on the vine at Ayers Creek.

Vineland formally released numerous varieties resulting from Bradt's work. Public breeding programs used to have their own naming protocols, a custom that has faded recently. In the case of Vineland, their releases usually started with a V, such as Veeport, Vivant, Vanessa and Vincent, with Festivee as a consistent variation on the theme. Selection 52131 survived the culling process, yet was never officially released. The vine somehow hung around long enough to catch the attention of the station's biochemist, Tibor Fuleki. He saw the grape's culinary potential for pies and preserves.

The late D. C. Paschke, a grape and chrysanthemum farmer from North East, Pennsylvania, was an insatiable collector of grapes and mum varieties. He tracked the breeding programs at Geneva (Cornell) and Vineland, and acquired a large collection of varieties. The farm was also known far and wide for his wife's grape pies, and it is likely Fuleki tipped him off to the exceptional qualities of 52131, over a slice of pie, we hope, and it slipped into the vineyard at North East. With two champions in its court, the grape informally acquired the name Veepie, consistent with the naming style of the station. Rombaugh and Paschke knew each other from their shared interest in grapes, and at some point 52131 ended up in Oregon as Veepie. Instead of being released, Veepie managed to slip away from Vineland in the nick of time disguised as a release, escaping the flaming pyre reserved for seedlings deemed unworthy for release. Apparently no living trace of it remains at the station today.

The numbered seedling that escapes is unusual, but SIUS 68-6-17 accomplished the same feat. That unnamed blackberry evaded the bulldozers that leveled the fields of Carbondale in 1973 by hitching a ride and hiding out in the Zych family's backyard until 1985. That is the year when it was finally released as our most beloved "Chester Thornless."

With its two primary champions dead, this hafling grape, perched between a number and a name, has attached itself to our farm. Like Fuleki, Paschke and Rombaugh, we think it is a singular grape that belongs in any well-rounded vineyard. Personally, we wish there were a greater diversity of culinary grapes, but 52131 is a good start. It certainly deserves a formal release someday.

Dr. K. Helen Fisher, Bradt's successor at Vineland, helped us sort out this story. We appreciate her willingness to provide the history of the grape, allowing us to acknowledge Bradt's role in developing it, and Fuleki as its advocate at the station. Thank you Helen. That said, any errors or flights of fancy in the above account are ours alone. We hope you all enjoy the Veepie Grape preserves.

Photos of Veepie grapes by Anthony Boutard. Photo of Vineland Station from Vineland Research & Innovation Centre.

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.