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100 species #98: Concord grape
Nov. 19th, 2011 03:58 pm
These last withered Concord grapes (Vitis labrusca) hang in the corner of the small yard fence.
Concord grapes are a cultivated variety of the native New England fox grape, developed in Concord Massachusetts. They are one of a small handful of conspicuous sweet fruits edible to humans native to our area. Birds and other animals like them very much, and between the blue jays and the gray squirrels, the humans at the house got to eat very few grapes. Wine grapes that are hybridized with or grafted onto fox grapes are resistant to disease and cold.
Apparently the first owners of our house planted many fruit trees and shrubs; we suspect that these grape vines--thick as a baseball bat at the base--are the last remaining fruit plants in the yard from that time.
Wikipedia claims that the name "fox grape" and the "foxy" taste of these grapes has nothing to do with the animal the fox. I tend to disagree. (Whether or not I'm full of it, I think that's one of my better essays. I think you should read it.)
Grapes climb by way of spiraling tendrils. (As opposed to Boston ivy which uses adhesive disks, or poison ivy which uses hair-like aerial roots, or Oriental bittersweet which twines secondary stems around a structure.)
Grapes, part three
Dec. 28th, 2008 11:03 amOne of the things about taking care of a variety of different animals for a living, is that you become intimately acquainted with the smells they leave behind. This is neither a good thing or a bad thing, it simply is. The negative side is that most of these smells are bad smells from waste products; the positive side is that it helps you understand the animals better, and gives you another tool in determining the animals' health and well-being.
I took care of red foxes at Drumlin Farm for about seven years. Their cage had a strong skunk-like odor that visitors were sure to mention if someone was there to hear it. We put up signs explaining that our skunk was descented and that they were smelling the fox cage. The smell comes from sulfur compounds, possibly from the fox' anal gland, and helps them mark their territory. It's normally pretty faint, and you aren't likely to smell it in the wild, but in a soil-lined concrete cage, it gets pretty funky. But that's not the smell I want to discuss.
There's another smell, beneath the powerful skunk smell, which I especially noticed when the foxes would urinate into their food bowl. (This wasn't unusual--wild foxes sometimes urinate on their food caches.) There was something so familiar, and dare I say it, pleasant about this other smell. I realized that it was the smell of Concord grapes--above and beyond the normal smell of grapes, Concord grapes have a musky powerful essence that distinguishes them from other grapes.
I thought I might be crazy to think this, or that perhaps some component of the grapes we fed the foxes (each fox got three grapes per day) came out into their urine. Then I encountered a reference to "fox grapes" and did a little digging.
Concord grapes, as it turns out, are one of several cultivated varieties of Vitis labrusca, the fox grape. Concord grapes are so well known that their common name has eclipsed the name "fox grape" in recent years. But for a long time the name fox grape was used to describe this fruit-bearing vine native to eastern North America. It appears that the name came from the "foxy" odor and flavor of these grapes. Early colonists would have been much more in touch with the essence of fox, since killing them was a sport and a duty (protecting the chickens and all). Fox urine would have been part of the olfactory palette of life, along with horse manure, freshly chopped firewood (different kinds distinguishable by odor), and smoked cod. The modifier "foxy" when referring to grape flavor, is still used by wine enthusiasts. That essence that I attributed to concord grapes is one of the many flavors that can be found in wine.
Clever chemists have delved into the secrets of the flavors of grapes, and found a compound called Methyl Anthranilate, both in the skins of grapes and in the musk glands of foxes.* This chemical can be artificially synthesized, and has been, by the ton. It is used as grape flavoring in candy, soda, popsicles, you name it, basically any processed food that is purple gets its purple flavor from Methyl Anthranilate. So what? Chemists synthesize lots of flavors (like the chemical found in the Western Conifer Seed Bug which is the same chemical used to flavor candy like sour apples).
Then in 1994, someone discovered a new use for Methyl Anthranilate. Someone (I don't know who, or how, or what the hell they thought they were doing) found that if you spray this stuff on grass, Canada geese won't eat it. There are a great many people out there willing to pay a great amount of money to keep Canada geese off of grass, so MA (as it is known in the pest control biz) became a commercially produced goose deterrent. The main problem with it is that if it rains, the stuff washes away and needs to be reapplied. I haven't read if runoff has produced any grape flavored ponds.
I learned about MA a few years ago when I took a course on "Living with Canada Geese" sponsored by the MSPCA and run by an outfit called GeesePeace. The people running that class explained that MA affects birds in a way that's analogous to the way capsaicin (the active ingredient in hot peppers) affects mammals. In researching the relationship between these two chemicals I quickly found myself over my head. "Repellency in birds is enhanced by electron richness of the phenyl ring and basicity and reduced by acidic functionalities. The reverse is true for mammals." (Chemical Ecology of vertebrates By Dietland Müller-Schwarze, p. 397). However that paragraph did include the information that MA "given in water also reduced feeding in mice." Mice don't like grape juice? Mice have adapted to avoid fox odor (mice and voles are the primary prey of foxes)? Lots of room for study, for someone.
Lately there has been more movement on the pest control front, as regards to the use of MA. I learned (via gmail text ads) of a product called Bird Buffer. According to the maker of this product, they have found a way to adapt machines used to make fog for stage shows, to blow "nano-particles" of MA over the area you wish to protect from birds. The idea is to keep big flocks of birds (they don't specify what kind of birds, but presumably pigeons--there are more complicated instructions for dealing with "small birds," sparrows and probably starlings), from roosting in open warehouses and other places. The machine is meant to be used at dawn and dusk when most of the birds are flying in and out. The particles of MA are so small that the product is supposedly only effective on flying birds, which are "breathing faster."
This causes a minor irritation which makes the birds choose a different roost. Also your warehouse then smells like grape Kool-aid all day, which beats the smell of bird shit.
This isn't an endorsement--I certainly can't use the thing at the zoo and tear-gas all my ducks just to keep the sparrows out. But it is interesting to me. The fox urine thing nagged at me about five years ago, and it wasn't until I read about the Bird Buffer that I filled in the blanks in between. It makes me want to have a glass of wine to celebrate.
* I found this information from one source only: a blog entry from April 2002 called "How Foxy is She?" by Larry Moore on a site called RE: Whatever. It connected a lot of dots for me, but I can't verify some of the stuff in there, including the presence of MA in fox musk.
Here's a cute site on MA done by a chemistry student. I found it helpful.
I took care of red foxes at Drumlin Farm for about seven years. Their cage had a strong skunk-like odor that visitors were sure to mention if someone was there to hear it. We put up signs explaining that our skunk was descented and that they were smelling the fox cage. The smell comes from sulfur compounds, possibly from the fox' anal gland, and helps them mark their territory. It's normally pretty faint, and you aren't likely to smell it in the wild, but in a soil-lined concrete cage, it gets pretty funky. But that's not the smell I want to discuss.
There's another smell, beneath the powerful skunk smell, which I especially noticed when the foxes would urinate into their food bowl. (This wasn't unusual--wild foxes sometimes urinate on their food caches.) There was something so familiar, and dare I say it, pleasant about this other smell. I realized that it was the smell of Concord grapes--above and beyond the normal smell of grapes, Concord grapes have a musky powerful essence that distinguishes them from other grapes.
I thought I might be crazy to think this, or that perhaps some component of the grapes we fed the foxes (each fox got three grapes per day) came out into their urine. Then I encountered a reference to "fox grapes" and did a little digging.
Concord grapes, as it turns out, are one of several cultivated varieties of Vitis labrusca, the fox grape. Concord grapes are so well known that their common name has eclipsed the name "fox grape" in recent years. But for a long time the name fox grape was used to describe this fruit-bearing vine native to eastern North America. It appears that the name came from the "foxy" odor and flavor of these grapes. Early colonists would have been much more in touch with the essence of fox, since killing them was a sport and a duty (protecting the chickens and all). Fox urine would have been part of the olfactory palette of life, along with horse manure, freshly chopped firewood (different kinds distinguishable by odor), and smoked cod. The modifier "foxy" when referring to grape flavor, is still used by wine enthusiasts. That essence that I attributed to concord grapes is one of the many flavors that can be found in wine.
Clever chemists have delved into the secrets of the flavors of grapes, and found a compound called Methyl Anthranilate, both in the skins of grapes and in the musk glands of foxes.* This chemical can be artificially synthesized, and has been, by the ton. It is used as grape flavoring in candy, soda, popsicles, you name it, basically any processed food that is purple gets its purple flavor from Methyl Anthranilate. So what? Chemists synthesize lots of flavors (like the chemical found in the Western Conifer Seed Bug which is the same chemical used to flavor candy like sour apples).
Then in 1994, someone discovered a new use for Methyl Anthranilate. Someone (I don't know who, or how, or what the hell they thought they were doing) found that if you spray this stuff on grass, Canada geese won't eat it. There are a great many people out there willing to pay a great amount of money to keep Canada geese off of grass, so MA (as it is known in the pest control biz) became a commercially produced goose deterrent. The main problem with it is that if it rains, the stuff washes away and needs to be reapplied. I haven't read if runoff has produced any grape flavored ponds.
I learned about MA a few years ago when I took a course on "Living with Canada Geese" sponsored by the MSPCA and run by an outfit called GeesePeace. The people running that class explained that MA affects birds in a way that's analogous to the way capsaicin (the active ingredient in hot peppers) affects mammals. In researching the relationship between these two chemicals I quickly found myself over my head. "Repellency in birds is enhanced by electron richness of the phenyl ring and basicity and reduced by acidic functionalities. The reverse is true for mammals." (Chemical Ecology of vertebrates By Dietland Müller-Schwarze, p. 397). However that paragraph did include the information that MA "given in water also reduced feeding in mice." Mice don't like grape juice? Mice have adapted to avoid fox odor (mice and voles are the primary prey of foxes)? Lots of room for study, for someone.
Lately there has been more movement on the pest control front, as regards to the use of MA. I learned (via gmail text ads) of a product called Bird Buffer. According to the maker of this product, they have found a way to adapt machines used to make fog for stage shows, to blow "nano-particles" of MA over the area you wish to protect from birds. The idea is to keep big flocks of birds (they don't specify what kind of birds, but presumably pigeons--there are more complicated instructions for dealing with "small birds," sparrows and probably starlings), from roosting in open warehouses and other places. The machine is meant to be used at dawn and dusk when most of the birds are flying in and out. The particles of MA are so small that the product is supposedly only effective on flying birds, which are "breathing faster."
This causes a minor irritation which makes the birds choose a different roost. Also your warehouse then smells like grape Kool-aid all day, which beats the smell of bird shit.
This isn't an endorsement--I certainly can't use the thing at the zoo and tear-gas all my ducks just to keep the sparrows out. But it is interesting to me. The fox urine thing nagged at me about five years ago, and it wasn't until I read about the Bird Buffer that I filled in the blanks in between. It makes me want to have a glass of wine to celebrate.
* I found this information from one source only: a blog entry from April 2002 called "How Foxy is She?" by Larry Moore on a site called RE: Whatever. It connected a lot of dots for me, but I can't verify some of the stuff in there, including the presence of MA in fox musk.
Here's a cute site on MA done by a chemistry student. I found it helpful.
Grapes, part two
Dec. 27th, 2008 08:42 amSince my father's heart attack, I've thought about some of my habits, and how to modify them. I like to drink, not always in moderation. Probably being more moderate boozebag (doctors say no more than two drinks for men is healthy) is the right way to go. Also, I seem to remember that red wine is considered heart-healthy for some reason (the American Heart institute says don't start drinking it if you aren't already a boozebag, but if you are, go ahead--have no more than two) compared to other stuff you can drink. I'd guess it's the rich blend of phytochemicals and tannins that are in it, as compared to liquors, which tend to be filtered and distilled until they are mostly a solution of delicious poisonous alcohol. Where was I? Oh yeah, so I've been drinking red wine lately. Trader Joes sells perfectly drinkable bottles of it for three bucks. Seriously, it tastes much nicer than the crap that we used to drink in art school that came in gallon jugs.
A few years ago, my friend Joey went on a tour of Europe in a Rock and Roll Band. He brought back many stories (I seem to recall the band claiming that it was a form of animal abuse to allow the border police dogs to smell the contents of their tour van) but one thing always stuck with me. I don't even remember what country they were in, but in some warehouse or basement somewhere in Europe, the young music fans were drinking a cocktail of red wine and Coca Cola. Joey was revolted by the idea, it probably offended him on more levels than just the mingled flavors, being an aesthete and man of culture as he was and is. I supposed that in Europe people drink red wine all the time, the way that North Americans drink slurpees, and that Coca Cola has an exotic American cache to it. I kind of wondered what it would taste like, but was afraid to try it. Who wants to spoil an expensive bottle of wine by pouring coke over it?
Then came Three Buck Chuck. It occurred to me a few days ago, that even if the drink was wretched, I wouldn't be out much if I used Charles Shaw to make it. So I did, and you know what? It's not bad. Really. Both drinks are very rich, but the combination isn't overwhelming. Depending on what kind of cola you use (we tried a variety--thanks![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
belen1974) the drink suggests sangria, and has some chocolaty notes. I prefer it with diet cola--for my health, after all.
Of course, the main benefit of it--the addition of stimulant caffeine to a sedative alcoholic drink--makes it not such a heart-healthy choice. But it's gotta taste better than Red Bull and vodka. I've never tried it, but I assume it tastes like Frat boy spit and Flintstone's vitamins.
According to Wikipedia, this wine and coke cocktail is called "Callimocho," from the Basque kalimotxo, as it's been drunk in Basque country since at least the 70's. This is a particularly dodgy wiki page so I don't know exactly how much of this is true. It claims that Callimocho is popular in Spain, goes by several other names (and therefore must exist) in the former Yugoslav republics and the Czech Republic, and is known in Chile by the name "Jote" which means "vulture." I can't imagine why Chilenos would call the drink "Vulture" unless it has to do with the color.
I think I'll call it Jote (pronounced Ho-tay, for you gringos), because I like to honor the vulture this way. Plus I can't remember "Callimocho" to save my life.
A few years ago, my friend Joey went on a tour of Europe in a Rock and Roll Band. He brought back many stories (I seem to recall the band claiming that it was a form of animal abuse to allow the border police dogs to smell the contents of their tour van) but one thing always stuck with me. I don't even remember what country they were in, but in some warehouse or basement somewhere in Europe, the young music fans were drinking a cocktail of red wine and Coca Cola. Joey was revolted by the idea, it probably offended him on more levels than just the mingled flavors, being an aesthete and man of culture as he was and is. I supposed that in Europe people drink red wine all the time, the way that North Americans drink slurpees, and that Coca Cola has an exotic American cache to it. I kind of wondered what it would taste like, but was afraid to try it. Who wants to spoil an expensive bottle of wine by pouring coke over it?
Then came Three Buck Chuck. It occurred to me a few days ago, that even if the drink was wretched, I wouldn't be out much if I used Charles Shaw to make it. So I did, and you know what? It's not bad. Really. Both drinks are very rich, but the combination isn't overwhelming. Depending on what kind of cola you use (we tried a variety--thanks
belen1974) the drink suggests sangria, and has some chocolaty notes. I prefer it with diet cola--for my health, after all.Of course, the main benefit of it--the addition of stimulant caffeine to a sedative alcoholic drink--makes it not such a heart-healthy choice. But it's gotta taste better than Red Bull and vodka. I've never tried it, but I assume it tastes like Frat boy spit and Flintstone's vitamins.
According to Wikipedia, this wine and coke cocktail is called "Callimocho," from the Basque kalimotxo, as it's been drunk in Basque country since at least the 70's. This is a particularly dodgy wiki page so I don't know exactly how much of this is true. It claims that Callimocho is popular in Spain, goes by several other names (and therefore must exist) in the former Yugoslav republics and the Czech Republic, and is known in Chile by the name "Jote" which means "vulture." I can't imagine why Chilenos would call the drink "Vulture" unless it has to do with the color.
I think I'll call it Jote (pronounced Ho-tay, for you gringos), because I like to honor the vulture this way. Plus I can't remember "Callimocho" to save my life.
Grapes, part one
Dec. 26th, 2008 06:13 pm"There is a devil in every berry of the grape."
This is a wonderful quotation or proverb, but where does it come from? If you rely on a quick search of the internet, the loud and clear answer is "The Koran." (Or the Quran or Qu'ran, but most of the time, "The Koran.")
But information and misinformation travel just as widely and as quickly on the internet, and given the sensitive nature of attributing a quotation to this particular text, it deserves a cross-check. I tried to nail down exactly where in the Koran this quote comes from. If you quote Biblical scripture, you follow it with the name of the Book, and the numbers of the chapter and verse. None of the sites I found alleging that this quote was from the Koran specified what chapter it was from.
I checked a searchable Koran site, and could not find the quote. There are some verses that mention grapes, including this nice one: "And of the fruits of the palms and the grapes-- you obtain from them intoxication and goodly provision; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who ponder." (The Bee 16.67) But the full phrase quoted above (even using the two words Iblis and shaitan that may be translated into "devil") doesn't seem to appear.
Deeper in the search results is another possible origin: Thomas A Kempis, medieval German monk, and author of Imitation of Christ, an influential Catholic text (I confess I knew the title only from a Psychedelic Furs song). A sizable minority of lists of quotations attribute the proverb to Kempis. At least one source claims that the phrase "there is a devil in every berry of the grape" comes from Imitation of Christ, but I couldn't prove that by searching a few different online versions of the book.
I did however find the phrase in another book. "...Perhaps everyone has not heard the proverb, 'There is a devil in every berry of the grape.' This proverb is in use in some parts of England, and is said to have strayed hither from Turkey." This is from Flowers and Flower-lore by Hilderic Friend, published in 1884. ("Turkey" in this period referred to the Ottoman Empire, which comprised most of the Islamic world.) This citation lends support to the notion that the quote has an Islamic origin, if not actually that of the Koran itself.
My best guess is that the proverb's origin is lost to history. We may never know the identity of the poetic teetotaller that coined it. I doubt that the saying even comes from the Islamic world; I suspect that it became attributed to the Koran as a way of making it seem more significant and "quotable." If someone reading this has studied the Koran or Imitation of Christ and can say for certain that the origin is in one of these texts, please do. And please provide chapter and verse numbers, so that we can all see it for ourselves.
This is a wonderful quotation or proverb, but where does it come from? If you rely on a quick search of the internet, the loud and clear answer is "The Koran." (Or the Quran or Qu'ran, but most of the time, "The Koran.")
But information and misinformation travel just as widely and as quickly on the internet, and given the sensitive nature of attributing a quotation to this particular text, it deserves a cross-check. I tried to nail down exactly where in the Koran this quote comes from. If you quote Biblical scripture, you follow it with the name of the Book, and the numbers of the chapter and verse. None of the sites I found alleging that this quote was from the Koran specified what chapter it was from.
I checked a searchable Koran site, and could not find the quote. There are some verses that mention grapes, including this nice one: "And of the fruits of the palms and the grapes-- you obtain from them intoxication and goodly provision; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who ponder." (The Bee 16.67) But the full phrase quoted above (even using the two words Iblis and shaitan that may be translated into "devil") doesn't seem to appear.
Deeper in the search results is another possible origin: Thomas A Kempis, medieval German monk, and author of Imitation of Christ, an influential Catholic text (I confess I knew the title only from a Psychedelic Furs song). A sizable minority of lists of quotations attribute the proverb to Kempis. At least one source claims that the phrase "there is a devil in every berry of the grape" comes from Imitation of Christ, but I couldn't prove that by searching a few different online versions of the book.
I did however find the phrase in another book. "...Perhaps everyone has not heard the proverb, 'There is a devil in every berry of the grape.' This proverb is in use in some parts of England, and is said to have strayed hither from Turkey." This is from Flowers and Flower-lore by Hilderic Friend, published in 1884. ("Turkey" in this period referred to the Ottoman Empire, which comprised most of the Islamic world.) This citation lends support to the notion that the quote has an Islamic origin, if not actually that of the Koran itself.
My best guess is that the proverb's origin is lost to history. We may never know the identity of the poetic teetotaller that coined it. I doubt that the saying even comes from the Islamic world; I suspect that it became attributed to the Koran as a way of making it seem more significant and "quotable." If someone reading this has studied the Koran or Imitation of Christ and can say for certain that the origin is in one of these texts, please do. And please provide chapter and verse numbers, so that we can all see it for ourselves.
