can anyone ID these grapes???

[greg1186]

i was hiking by my house in northern new jersey and stumbled upon about 2 and a half pounds of wild grapes... i ate one, it was a bit sour with a medium sized seed. i made jelly out of it... its really good here are some pics..

[soil]

did the tendrils on the plant have one or was it forked at the end. this will tell you if its wild or a escaped cultivar.

native wild = one

cultivar = two

we have wild escaped cultivar grapes on our property( no clue which kind), they are small and have seed like the ones you found. given some processing they make great jelly.

also if they have a "fuzz"on the grapes this is wild yeast, you can use that to make sourdough starter and make bread. if you do this you will make AMAZING tasting bread.

[garden5]

How do you harvest the "fuzz" for use in making bread? Do you have to use it immediately or can/how do you store it.

[tedln]

I think the wild grape of the north east is simply called wild grapes and is usually very tart. If you were further south, the wild grape would be the muscadine or scuppernong. In some regions of the United States, the wild grape including muscadine are readily available along fence rows or creek banks. They are sun loving and don't tolerate shade well. Natural, wild foods like grapes, mushrooms, persimmons, plums, and many, many others are what make walks in the woods so much fun.

Ted

[garden5]

Natural, wild foods like grapes, mushrooms, persimmons, plums, and many, many others are what make walks in the woods so much fun.

Ted

You're braver than I am. I've just heard too many stories of people eating what they "were sure" was a edible variety of mushroom.....only to find out that it wasn't. Usually, a great deal of unpleasantness accompanied this discovery. I'll eat a lot of wild things, especially berries, but I won't touch a mushroom.

[tedln]

I studied mushrooms for years and I used to have a lot of books detailing the differences between edible and non edible mushrooms. I was a member of the Gulf States Mycological Society. I was looking for my reference books the other day and couldn't find them. We put a lot of stuff in storage when we took a couple of years to travel around in an RV. I still haven't found a lot of things including my mushroom books. The most common edibles are fairly easy to identify, but I wouldn't attempt to tell someone else without my reference books. Best thing to do is not eat it unless you are absolutely sure it is okay.

Ted

[garden5]

Ted, you must certainly know your business with mushrooms. I apologize if my earlier post kind of inadvertently called you a novice......didn't intend to, but posts just sometimes come out that way .

You're one of the folks who can safely eat the wild stuff. Me? I know what a button is, a portabella , but anything else is...um...a mushroom . As you can see, I certainly have no business out eating wild mushrooms (I probably didn't even spell "portabella" correctly) .

[tedln]

Garden5,

Not a problem! I studied them simply because I wanted to know which ones were edible and which were not. The fact that a mushroom is not edible is normally because they simply taste lousy. Many are not edible because they will induce vomiting quickly. A few like the death cap (Amanita phalloides, native to the west coast and the north eastern United States) and the Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa, also native to the west coast) are truly deadly. No anti toxins exist for them and they destroy the liver. The only "cure" is a liver transplant.

A large number of the Amanita genus are also psychotropic or hallucinogenic in the same way LSD is. Many of those have laws preventing their possession, possession of their spores for home cultivation, and many other restrictions. There have been instances of people literally overdosing and dieing from their ingestion.

The best thing to do is if you don't know what it is, leave it alone. When I first became interested in mushrooms, very few resources existed on the internet. Today, the information on the internet is great and easily available. Many sites provide simple identification techniques which can be printed.

My favorites have always been the Chanterelle, Oyster, and Morel mushrooms. It would be simple for folks to learn how to identify those in the field and leave all others alone. Especially avoid those that resemble the mushrooms available in the grocery store. The three I mentioned don't resemble any of the truly poisonous varieties.

Ted

[soil]

here you go garden 5

http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/br ... yeast.html

[garden5]

Thanks for the tips Ted and the link, Soil!

One question, Soil: it says to mix the grapes, flour, and water until the mixture is "thick and gooey," but then it says to "strain out the grapes" after it has begun to ferment. So, the question is...how do you strain something that is "thick and gooey"? Does it change consistency once it begins to ferment?

Thanks a lot.

[soil]

you can make it a bit on the "watery" side for easy straining. then add some more flour to get it to the point it needs to be for the starter. its a bit confusing at first i admit, last year i was skeptical. until that first batch of bread and OMG WOW. and then sourdough pancakes, and sourdough waffles....

[garden5]

you can make it a bit on the "watery" side for easy straining. then add some more flour to get it to the point it needs to be for the starter. its a bit confusing at first i admit, last year i was skeptical. until that first batch of bread and OMG WOW. and then sourdough pancakes, and sourdough waffles....

You've confirmed my assumptions....that's what I thought I could do.


Glad to hear your are enjoying your aourdough goodies!.

Thanks for posting this great tip.

[mwood4d]

hello...i have the same grapes, i believe they are just wild, i don't know the name....just finished making 12 1/2 pint jars of jelly......this morning i am going to see how they came out..hopefully great!......the initial taste in the pot was terrific!!!!, hopefully will be able to make more next season!

[soil]

hey garden 5, been trying this recipe lately and its been working better.