When I lived in Atlanta, purple and golden orbs would start to appear just after the heat reached its peak in August, lining the path on the long walks I took from my apartment to the park I frequented. Tucked into crevices among the green leaves, the fruit would announce itself first with its shining, flawless skin, then with a faint scent of sweetness, which signaled that a reprieve from the heat was soon to follow. After freeing the pulp from its skin and seeds, I would casually pop the fruit into my mouth and be momentarily overwhelmed by the flavor of those last long days of Southern summer.
When I’d first moved to Georgia, as a kid, my neighbor had explained to me that these ubiquitous berries were muscadines, or Vitis rotundifolia, a variety of grape that looks — and tastes — nothing like the green seedless grapes I was used to finding in my lunchbox. Unlike table grapes, which tend to be oblong, muscadines are round, with particularly shiny flesh. The flavor is fuller, more complex than that of table grapes, although removing muscadines from their tough, tannic skins presents a far greater challenge than popping a watery, seedless grape into your mouth mindlessly. These fruits, which are eaten raw, cooked and even made into wine, became a symbol to me, marking the end of the brutal Southern summers with a bittersweet exclamation point. And I’m not alone in my nostalgia for the iconic fruit.
