Muscadine Grapes

Muscadine Grapes……I’ve seen them at the grocery store every year for as long as I can remember……seen them at country fairs and festival booths….. but never stopped to try one for myself. (Or so I thought) I always meant to, but didn’t…..didn’t really think about it……..but today, I purchased a box full from our local Kroger……took them home and washed them and took a little bite of the juicy, purple goodness……and I was suddenly transported back to my Granddad and Mema’s home in Johnson City, Tennessee. I was probably eight years old, give or take a year, playing in their yard…..past Mema’s beautiful rose garden…..past the driveway….past the lovely, tall magnolias…….down close to the fence…….what used to be an old set of monkey bars, transformed into a palace of green, twisting turning vines…..bursting full of muscadines. I couldn’t quite reach those luscious grapes, but Granddad would pull them down for me. As I held the leathery, purple skin of the grape tightly in my fingers and gave it a good squeeze, the delicious inside of the grape would pop into my mouth …and the tangy sweetness….well, it’s something I remember still today. It’s the taste of warm late summer afternoons and the taste of childhood imagination…… purple, sticky, grape sweetness.