Hoard the Concord

Homemade Grape Jam

Assuming you're not 10 years old and reading this blog, I'm going to guess it's been a few years since you had grape Kool Aid or a purple slushie. But if you're like my mom, perhaps you've more recently consumed a grape soda. Yeah?

So, all these grape flavored things don't taste ANYTHING like a grape. What gives? As most of you know, grape flavor is modeled after the Concord grape, vitis labrusa to be exact. However, Concord grapes don't show up on the fruit stands in the supermarket... well, ever. Why? How did the snappy, watery, seedless grape trump the Concord? Because of the Concord's extreme flavor, large seeds, and gummy inside meat, it wasn't as convenient or appealing for a large market. I suppose the extreme convenience of seedless grapes won the heart of hungry snackers everywhere, because you can only find Concord grapes at farmer's markets.


However, I discovered the Concord grape thanks to the surprisingly subtle bounty of the farmhouse in Doylestown. One day, I had parked my car under some 'trees' in the yard. I stepped out and noticed that they were not trees at all! The most beautiful, dark violet grapes were hanging lavishly from a row of tall gnarled vines. These living relics stood, unassumingly and quiet, offering the jewels of another age. The grape was sweeter and more flavorful than anything I had eaten that year, I swear. Imagine the intensity of a candy Gusher, but with real components, not high fructose corn syrup and food coloring.


Many months later, I wanted to preserve the taste of my summer discovery. I also wanted to share my newfound affection for the Concord. So I made Grape jam. A REAL version of Smucker's.

Is it worth your time? Hell yes.

4ish hours of time = 3 months of cheaper-than-artesian-jam

How cheap?

Artesian jam from farmer's market or wholesome supermarket = $4.50 per 8 oz.

Your jam from scratch = $3.50 per 8 oz (Included stove heating and cost of rubberized lids in this calculation, but did not include jars because you can basically use these over and over again. You have to buy new rubberized lids every time.)

Here's how it goes:

I used:

• 3 quarts of fresh Concord grapes
• 1 packet of low-sugar fruit pectin (low sugar doesn't mean diet, it just means there is more fruit pectin used to bind the jam together, which requires less sugar. For more information on fruit pectin, click here. It's interesting.)
• 4 cups of organic granulated sugar
• Colander
• Food processor/blender or some sort of handheld masher (for mashing, duh)
• Tongs of some sort (to grab the jars out of hot water)
• Two pots, one large, one medium

The procedure for making jam can be broken down into 3 main steps. Sanitize the jars, cook the fruit, seal the jars. There are a bazillion websites that can tell you how to jam, but you're here so read on...

Sanitize the jars:

• Buy jamming jars. You can find them at most hardware store or kitchen supply stores (Ball is the conventional brand)
• Take your jars home and put on some tunes
• Wash the jars and the rings in hot water, then boil in a pot of water for 10 minutes OR sanitize in the dishwasher, leaving the dishwasher on warm so that the jars don't break when you put hot fruit in them later
• Wash the rings in hot soapy water (you can't boil or sanitize or the rubber will get funky)
• Keep the jars warm either in the hot water or dishwasher until you're ready to fill
• Do yourself a favor and keep the water in the pot very hot so that it's easy to bring to a boil again later. Also make sure there's enough water to cover at least 2 inches above your jar.

Cook the fruit:

• Rinse your grapes
• Chop them up in a blender or mash them with a utensil that gets the job done
• Put them in a pot on medium heat


• Bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes
• Sieve the cooked grapes by passing through a cheesecloth for clear jelly, or let stand for 20 minutes and decant the liquid off the top for a chunkier jam. (After I decanted the liquid, I dumped the remains into a colander positioned over the pot to strain off any more juice.)
• Mix 1/4 c. of sugar with packet of fruit pectin (to assure good distribution of pectin)
• Return grape juice to the pot, add the fruit pectin, and bring to a hard boil (aka. you cannot stir it away)
• Add the remaining sugar to the pan, and bring to a full boil again
• Boil HARD for 1 full minute

Nice color. Not nice for your clothes. Take heed.

Seal the Jars:

• Fill the jars with jelly up to the fill line. For most jars, this is where the pattern stops near the top.
• Wipe away any spills
• Put on the lids and the rings, tighten
• Put back into the boiling water
• Boil them for about 5 minutes. Longer for higher altitudes ;) This creates your vacuum seal so your fruit will indeed become "preserves"
• Lift them out of the hot water without scalding yourself
• Try not to bump them on anything, place on a surface that doesn't conduct heat well (aka put them on a cutting board) so that heat doesn't escape too rapidly. You want the jam to cool slowly. Listen for a popping sound... it's the sound of victory... a successfully created vacuum
• Check the jars for a seal the next morning (the top shouldn't pop up and down when pressed)
• While storing, you can remove the ring. That way, if bacteria does grow in your jar, the lid will pop off (due to the gasses 'exhaled' by the bacteria), which will let you know it's gone bad.

You can store these for quite a while. I don't know how long, I always eat them before I know it's been too long. The hard work pays off, seriously. I just ate some strawberry jelly in November that I made at the beginning of the summer. It was a little memoir of summer in a jar... sweet. I can't wait to open the last can of grape jelly in February.

Jam on people.

Supporting Evidence for Small Tomatoes

Hey all!

In my last post, I got on my soapbox and I told the world wide web what I think is important about food and why. You might think, 'alright, this girl is college educated, but she's no certified expert'.



This is a link to really great interview with Michael Pollan. He's the guy that wrote so many books you know. "Omnivore's Dilemma', 'In Defense of Food', etc. I haven't read his books, but after listening to this interview, I've affirmed that we have extremely similar views on the food industry. It's a long interview, but even if you watch the first 10-15 minutes, you'll hear this expert sort of backing up what my food blog is about. You might be thinking, 'this isn't really my bag' or 'yeah I don't have time'. But cmon', you are what you eat...this your body at stake! The only thing you REALLY own in this world. I really encourage you to listen to at least part of it... put it on in the background while you push papers, work out, procrastinate, etc.


Keep a lookout a new post coming this weekend-ish: the amazing Concord grape and the value of homemadejam.

About Small Tomatoes

What is 'Small Tomatoes'?

It is a food blog, stereotypically. Beyond the guise of peach rosemary sauce and handmade pasta, it’s a place to talk about food. Food as a source of energy for the human body. The human body as part of the food chain. The food chain as one of the most vital cycles necessary for all life. Small tomatoes is a commentary on how something very fundamental to all life has morphed into something that thrives on market drivers that often lack integrity.

(salad with heirloom plum tomatoes)

It’s going to the grocery store, and finding that apples exist year round, even though they have little taste and came from New Zealand. It’s the vicious cycle of people who try to lose weight and diet by eating fat-free yogurt. You can eat 2 cups of fat free yogurt, have a fully belly, and still feel unsatisfied. It’s having to drench your salad in creamy dressing to make it taste like anything, because the salad is simply not fresh. It’s nutrition-less and tasteless due to the fact that all its components were grown in California, refrigerated for two weeks, shipped across the United States, and sat in your supermarket for 5 days before you bought it. (Read this amazing excerpt about strawberries from "How to Pick a Peach" by Russ Parsons.) It’s the e.coli outbreak that repeatedly happens with bagged spinach and salad. How we foresake integrity in the name of ‘convenience’. It’s the salmonella outbreak that happened recently with mass produced eggs. It’s trying to find a sweetened beverage at the gas station that doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup in it. It’s going into the supermarket and trying to find the food you want without added preservatives, modified genes, or growth hormones.

(heirloom yellow tomato with mozzarella, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper)

But let’s face it, there are 6 billion mouths to feed across the world. The mentality now says ‘we must increase production’ to meet demand. It’s not that peculiar then, that we’ve decided to manufacture our food in the same way that we manufacture the year’s newest electronic gadget (before outsourcing of course... oh wait, no I’m sorry, we DO outsource our food production). It’s what we know, we think it’s a simple solution: Do whatever it takes to keep food firm enough for shipping, and then make as much as possible.

(goods from the Clark Park farmer's market in Philly)

Unfortunately, much of this translates into food that has very little taste, reduced nutrition, and a million added ingredients that you can’t pronounce. Somehow, the food industry Goliath has been lumbering around in the background, changing the shape of our food markets with very little attention or resistance from the people that it force feeds.

(quiche with local tomatoes, spinach, eggs, and goat cheese with a whole wheat spiced crust)

So, at a super simple level, small tomatoes is about buying food that’s appropriately sized. I hope to draw your attention to the difference between filling and satisfying. A smaller tomato (or rather, an appropriately sized tomato) will most likely have more flavor than an oversized tomato. On more complex level, small tomatoes is about making a small but significant difference in the world. Choosing to know about where your food came from can be a very powerful thing. It can raise the attention to others, and hopefully raise the quality standards for food far beyond your kitchen. And though it may seem like small potatoes to buy your weekly produce from the farmers’ market, at least you’re encouraging the farmer to sell her small tomatoes.