Grape Season

The Midwestern farm girl in me will always appreciate a clean soybean field and tall, straight rows of corn.  I think that sight will always be comforting, familiar.

Living in a different part of the world now, agriculture has a very different look, and its diversity and proximity are still a novelty.

Here I'm learning how to identify fruits like figs, persimmons, and pomegranate.  Then you've got the wild nuts and berries and herbs like hazelnuts, sage, and oregano.

Now we are entering grape season.  I do know what those look like, but I've never had them growing literally over my front door.

Our front sidewalk was showing the tell tale signs of maturity as the heaviest began to fall and splat on the ground below.  So yesterday our friend Demir came over to start the harvest, lest nothing good go to waste.

Of course we are grape newbies and totally unqualified to discern which are mature and which need a few more time on the vine.  So we lent support in the form of company.

While we watched our friend at work, many a neighbor walked by, thumb to their mouth, tipping their hand back in the universal sign of drink.

Were we getting ready to make some raki?

Raki is Albania's famous home brew.  The process hasn't changed in centuries, and in a culture where the man has few domestic hobbies, raki ranks up there at the top.  Virtually every man in the village makes his own and proudly proffers samples every fall and winter to show his expertise.  (I think come summer the home made stuff is long gone).

If we drank, and if we wanted to try our hand at producing this beverage, I'm not sure we had the volume to make much more than a small bottle.  (Stills are easily bought from road-side convenience stores but the process of producing raki is pretty extensive from the beginning of the fermentation process).  

Instead, we let Demir keep the fruits of his labor -- though he refused to keep the best. Grapes anyone?

The kids preferred the purple grapes.  

Chew on this  Have you ever wondered why we eat "ears" of corn?  I don't know that I really ever thought about it until I learned that Albanians don't call them "clumps" or "clusters" of grapes, like corn, they are called "ears"!