This year, though, we managed to harvest quite a few bunches to fill two large baskets. But our grapes are what the locals call ‘krasostafyla’ (wine-grapes), sweet but filled with seeds and quite difficult to swallow.

Early this August, as we finished harvesting the almonds, we noticed quite a few nice bunches of grapes hanging from the old, robust vines that engulf the southern fence of our property, behind the lemon trees.  From these vines we mainly gather the tender grape leaves early in May, to stuff and make our trademark dolmades.

Usually the grapes our vines produce hardly manage to ripen; wasps and all kinds of insects attack them as soon as they start to blush. Come harvest time, we just find a few bunches of rotten, half-eaten grapes which are sweet but filled with seeds and difficult to swallow.

These vines are probably a remnant of the old vineyards our little valley was famous for; the dark grapes used to produce quite good wine in the old days, as I discovered researching the paper I wrote for the 2017 Oxford Symposium:

“…Kea was once famous for its red wine.” British traveler and writer James T. Bent in his 1885 book ‘Cyclades, or Life among the insular Greeks,’ mentions that the island had extensive vineyards, many on terraced corridors in its northern slopes. Considerable amounts of wine were being produced throughout the island’s history. There was enough wine for local consumption, and until the early twentieth century some was also exported. Bent writes that Michael Psellos –the eleventh century monk, scholar, and politician– describes Kea’s wine as “sweet to the scent, and black in color,” and “much sought after in Constantinople. […] The wine of Keos is still of great repute,” […]

Photographs taken at the end of the nineteenth c. and beginning of the twentieth c. bear witness to serious wine-producing activity, especially in the northern part, where we live. The old abandoned, overgrown winepress I see from my office window, half-way up the terraced hill, is proof that vines must have been cultivated on the grounds around our house. There are many old wine presses all over the island, indicating extensive vineyards. These precious old presses –some in covered stone shacks, others very simple open-air cisterns carved in rock, or built with stones and plastered– are the sole remnants of the once thriving viticulture. Santorini, and other Cycladic islands never gave up on their vineyards, and managed to revive their unique grape varietals, putting their local, exquisite wine production on the international map. Kea doesen’t even manage to produce enough decent wine for local consumption these days; and the same is true for the island’s once plentiful cheese production. Bent playfully remarks that, unlike other islanders, Keans, complacent with their beautiful and relatively fertile island, are “not an ambitious race…”

When we bought our piece of land, the previous owner had planted lots of olive trees –too close together, unfortunately—uprooting the old vines. Only the ones on the fence survived, plus one more, frail but persistent, at the edge of the olive grove next to our eastern veranda.

A few years ago I decided to use the green, unripe grapes to make a Sour Grape Condiment as people still do in the Middle East, and in some Balkan countries.

The two baskets of ripe grapes we gathered now were too few for wine and too seedy to eat; so Costas and I decided to press them and take the juice to drink, freeze some to make granita, and certainly make moustalevria, the traditional grape must jelly our mothers used to make each year. It was a lengthy, painstaking process with our grapes. But if you use the usual seedless grapes one gets this time of year, moustalevria is the easiest and most delicious summer treat, we feel.

The old Greek recipes ask for a complicated process of simmering the grape must with wood ash to to clarify it, a step I always skip. I much prefer a fruity-tasting moustalevria, so I briefly boil the juice with cornstarch just until it thickens, much like I do when I make my Orange ‘Cream’ in the winter.

RECIPE: Moustalevria: Grape Must Jelly

The post The Seedy Grapes from our old Vines appeared first on Aglaia's Table οn Kea Cyclades.

It was the day we devote to bread and the different, sweet and savory variation one can create with just one basic dough; I had just happened to see Cali Doxiadis’ recipe and decided to try it with some of our leftover dough, after we made loaves, the cheese-stuffed buns, and the tomato or pepper-topped lagana (flat breads) we usually make.

Cali recently shared the FaceBook photos had posted ‘6-years ago’ during my very first try on the Harvest Tart.

In her recipe Cali writes: “…the original inspiration for this sweet and somewhat savoury tart is an Italian recipe for Schiacciata con Grappoli d’Uva, but several adaptations later, it is nearly unrecognisable. It has become a sort of crisp but chewy round flatbread, or sweet peppery pizza…”  In that first harvest tart my bread crust –I did not use Cali’s recipe– was OK, but not ideal, as the fruits were not well-incorporated on top, while the bottom was somewhat soggy. But it accompanied ideally the aged cheeses we served it with, especially the particularly spicy Sifnos Manoura, which ages in wine sediment.

When I made the tart again I chose to use instead of bread or pizza dough, the olive-oil-and-orange pastry that is so wonderful in my vegan olive pies. I had gotten the recipe many years from Zoe Evangelou, a lady I met at my friend Roxani Matsa’s winery, in Kantza; later I encountered very similar crust and olive pies in Cyprus. It is an easy and delicious crust that can easily accommodate both savory and/or sweet filling or topping.

Cali had recently shared the FaceBook photos I had posted ‘6-years ago’ during my very first try on the Harvest Tart, reminding me to try once again this simple Mediterranean treat which I had almost forgotten….

TO MAKE THE TART:

Follow the ingredients and instructions for crust of the Vegan Olive Pie, halving the recipe (2 instead of the 4 cups of flour) for a 25-30 cm. pie. Line the pan with parchment paper and stretch the dough to cover the pan, then sprinkle with sugar, preferably light brown, and follow Cali’s recipe for the grape and fig topping,  preferably choosing various kinds of grapes and more figs, if you happen to have plenty, as I do these days.

Sprinkle with some sugar on top of the fruit and bake in a 200 C oven for 30 minutes or more, until the crust is done and starts to color and the fruits wilted and bubbly.

As it is obvious the baked Harvest Tart is not as spectacular as the raw one, but it will be delicious! Trust me, and also my old friend Cali Doxiadis who lives in Corfu –on the northwestern part of Greece–  enjoying her spectacular garden, and of course cooking!

The post Grape and Fig Harvest Tart appeared first on Aglaia's Table οn Kea Cyclades.

The old recipes ask for a lengthy process of simmering and clarifying the grape must with wood ash, which I always skip. I much prefer a fruity-tasting moustalevria, so I briefly boil the juice with the cornstarch, just until it thickens, much like I do when I make my orange ‘cream’ in the winter. You can use any nice grapes you like to make the juice, but I wouldn’t use the canned concord grape juice available everywhere in the US as I am not fond of its taste and aroma.

Serves 8-10

5 cups grape juice (see NOTE 1 & 2)

3-6 tablespoons honey, or to taste

3/4 cup (100 grams) cornstarch

1 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely ground

Toasted, coarsely chopped walnuts, and/or sesame seeds 

In a saucepan, over medium-low heat, pour 4 cups grape juice and stir in 3 tablespoons honey. In a bowl dilute the cornstarch with the remaining cup of juice, stirring vigorously, then add it to the pan.

Increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring with wooden spoon until the moustalevria thickens and the cornstarch is cooked. Taste, and add more honey if you like it sweeter.

Divide into individual bowls or soup plates, as our mothers used to. Let cool and refrigerate for 3-4 hours, preferably overnight, until it sets. It will be somewhat wobbly.

Sprinkle with walnuts and with toasted sesame seeds, if you like, and serve.

NOTE 1.

You can juice any kind of seedless grapes in the juicer, if you have one, or in the blender, to make moustalevria. If you use the blender you may want to strain the juice; I would not, as I don’t mind some pulp. I don’t like the canned concord grape juice because its taste and aroma are very different from what I am used to.

To extract the juice from our very seedy grapes, we used an old-fashioned food processor to mash the grapes because we didn’t want to break the seeds in the fancier blender. First, of course, Costas washed the grapes and took out most of the stems.

We transferred the resulting juicy mash from the food processor to a large cheesecloth and pressed it to get the delicious, tangy juice. Our neighbor’s hens feasted on the leftover seeds and skins…

NOTE 2.

If you use the juice of white grapes (see the photo from my first book The Foods of Greece) and you preferred a more attractive, reddish moustalevria, substitute one cup of the grape juice with red sweet wine, such as the Greek Mavrodaphne, or Manischewitz, adjusting the amount of honey accordingly.

The post Moustalevria: Grape Must Jelly appeared first on Aglaia's Table οn Kea Cyclades.