Muscadine Jelly

I can honestly say that we really never have "store bought" jams or jellies. I've been given a few gourmet jellies in the past that we ate with gusto, but I cannot bring myself to write "jelly" on the grocery list. Why buy a jar of high fructose corn syrup with flavoring, coloring and pectin? I want fruit!

Chief Farmhand Chris picking the muscadines

Below is a list of the ingredients in a jar of Smucker's grape jelly:
CONCORD GRAPE JUICE, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, FRUIT PECTIN, CITRIC ACID, SODIUM CITRATE.

Some of the grapes from our first haul

Below is a list of the ingredients we used in our Ramsey Farms wild muscadine jelly.

• Fresh picked, fresh smashed wild muscadine juice
• sugar
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice

That is it! No corn syrup, no high fructose corn syrup, no pectin (all presumably GMO), no sodium citrate and no citric acid (lemon contains natural citric acid). Well I do add just a pinch of love and heritage to my jars, is that okay? And the taste? Oh my goodness, I cannot even begin to describe to you how this jelly tastes! It is like a muscadine flavor taste bud explosion in your mouth! It's so good you can eat it from the jar (try to restrain yourself).

[Side bar: Smucker's does have a line called "Orchard's Finest" that does not contain corn syrup or preservatives.]

Smashing boiled grapes through a chinois to get grape juice!

Growing up, my grandmother, aunt and mom spent hours making homemade jams, jellies and preserves from home grown or locally grown fruits. I honestly never recall seeing a jar of store-bought jelly at my grandparents or my childhood home. If there was, it was more of an exception I bet. So to this day I really cannot fathom purchasing a jar of flavored corn syrup at the grocery store. Just can't do it.

We spent the better part of two days picking, washing, cooking, squishing our muscadines to get juice. Boil the juice and add sugar and two tablespoons of lemon juice, bring to 220 degrees until the jelly passes the "spoon test". Ladle into clean, sterilized jars and process for 10 minutes in a water bath canner.

The first batch of jelly did not set up even after 48 hours. We fretfully wanted to avoid store-bought pectin. So I bought my very first candy-jelly-deep fry thermometer!!! (It's the little things folks. The little ordinary things that, if viewed through the right eyes are extraordinary.) We reboiled the jelly and added two tablespoons of bottled lemon juice (okay so next time I will find away around this too). Reladled the syrupy delicious smelling jelly lava into freshly cleaned sterilized jars and repeated the 10 minute water bath.

Pectin is found naturally in many fruits and is especially high in orange peel, apples, lemons and the seeds of raspberries and blackberries. Pectin has been available commercially in the US since the 1920s, obviously our great grandmothers weren't buying a pack of Sure-Jell at the Walmart. Typically they made jelly using other fruits (such as apple or lemon) to create a natural pectin.

The flavor is like summertime exploding in your mouth. Every taste bud you have will wake up alerted to the sweet-tart taste of this homemade muscadine jelly. Homemade jelly is all the flavors of childhood summers rolled into one delicious sweet concoction. You can almost feel your treehouse, smell the honeysuckles, and taste the wind in your face as you fly down deadman's hill on your bike. Yeah, homemade jelly is that good. What emotion does store bought jelly emote? What memories are conjured when you eat that?

Homemade jellies, jams and preserves tastes like Grammaw's jam. A little bit like heaven I imagine and a lot like home. ~ Ramsey

Don't miss our Pear Butter recipe. Both these fresh fruit preserves taste awesome on my copycat of Bojangle's buttermilk biscuits!