When God gives you a surprise batch of wild grapes growing in your horse pasture, what do you do? Make syrup of course! This week a young friend showed me a large number of wild grapevines growing around our horses and over the fence line in our pasture. Upon further inspection, it was deemed that while these grapes were extremely bitter, large seed bearing, and tiny, that they were legitimately edible.
While I stood in the pasture debating ones safety in eating random wild fruit, it dawned on me how our marketing driven world had cursed my natural desire for a sense of adventure. As I thought about the delectable edibles I could create with my new found bounty, fear overcame my daydream adding visions of food poisoning, botulism and a whole host of other food spread illnesses. Apparently my mind is perfectly comfortable with the idea that if a large conglomerate makes my jam. That somehow I am safeguarded from various plagues if a group of shareholders are involved, but if I brew up a batch of yumminess in my kitchen, sudden death is immanent. Why is this?
Last year I grew brussel sprouts in my garden, and when it came time to harvest them, I was afraid to eat them. When I discussed my grave fears with my less that empathetic husband, I realized how I had been duped. I was sold the idea that commercial food is the safe route. That if food is processed by the gallon, in large steel drums than somehow it is safer and even potentially more “healthy” than steaming some sprouts from my garden.
Needless to say, my husband required me to eat the brussel sprouts. I’m happy to report that other than deciding that these are not good veggies to try to grow in Minnesota, due to the short growing season (which renders them small and bitter), that no evil fell upon our home.
So back to the grapes…..I plucked enough to fill a large basket and strolled through the pasture and through the barn up to the house to arrive at my kitchen. I washed the grapes and began the painstaking job of taking them off of the vine. Several minutes and many purple stained fingers later, I decided to drop the grapes, stems and all into my kettle to boil them down and extract the juice.
Within a few moments my kids were wondering what smelled so good in the kitchen. I strained my deep purple juice and discarded the carcass of vines and skins into the bucket of scraps for the chickens. I added sugar to the kettle and began the process of reducing the juice down into thicker syrup.
Once the process was complete, I sampled some of my finished product on a slice of pound cake I had baked the day before. Heaven! Pure heaven was in my mouth. These puny little grapes, water and sugar combined to make a taste bud explosion in my mouth. While I could sense the “grapeness” of the syrup, other more berry like flavors burst forth. What I had been missing these last two years that these vines sat undiscovered in my pasture, and what a great example of the benefits of taking a leap of faith.
Since this discovery, I have made 8 more pints of syrup and if it were not for my son’s impending trip to the state fair this week, I would be canning like a fiend. But I can’t help but think about all of the lost opportunities I have had slip through my fingers because I believed that someone else was a more reliable source than my own experience or intuition. I know that questioning the basis of my life decisions is a big part of my current journey, and I am thankful that God chose to bequeath these grapes to me in order to remind me, that every so often he grants us the fulfillment of wishes we didn’t even know we had.
So next time you’re out my way, stop on by and see what’s brewing in my kitchen. Who knows, maybe I’ll become an expert at thistle soup or burdock tea. No matter what, I will never look a gift grapevine in the face and fail to pluck its bounty again.
