The Bluest Eye

CONCORD GRAPE SORBET

When I moved to Brooklyn what feels like ten lifetimes ago, it was the hottest, thickest part of July. An ominous black mold crept across the ceiling in the bathroom of my new apartment like sponge paint, thriving in the dense humidity. In the kitchen, my feet stuck to a mysterious blue substance that no amount of elbow grease could remove, and there were cockroaches, droves of them, their burned sugar shells lounging in the drains and scurrying across the walls. (Sorry I never told you this, Mom and Dad.)

The first night there was a ground-shaking thunderstorm—not the kind that you cuddle up against, but the kind that actually terrifies you. I bought a frozen pizza and a bottle of wine, only to remember that the gas hadn’t yet been turned on, so I couldn’t use my oven, and I had left my wine key behind in my former apartment. I bought a honey-dipped donut from the deli next door, sat on the gray-blue carpet of my bedroom floor, and cried myself exhausted.

The next morning I pulled myself out of bed early and immediately set to scrubbing, scraping, and bleaching. When I opened my kitchen window to air out the smell of cleaning chemicals, I noticed for the first time a delicate green vine creeping and curling along the bricks of my building and wrapping itself around the fire escape. Even though it was too early for the plant to bear any fruit, I recognized it immediately as a Concord grapevine.

There was a house on the street where I grew up that was covered on one side with Concord grapevines, and my friends and I spent many a crisp fall afternoon gorging ourselves on the grapes. They are one of the only fruits that truly taste like their artificial imitation, which is one of the reasons I loved them so much as a kid—they tasted like Welch’s grape jelly and purple Bazooka gum. Eating them always felt like something I shouldn’t be doing (and seeing as I was stealing them from a neighbor’s yard, that feeling was probably valid).

Maybe it’s from the five months I spent in college writing a paper on food imagery in Toni Morrison novels, but I rarely eat grapes without thinking of her. Nobody can make produce sexy quite like Morrison can—her plants sway their hips, her fruits swell and bloom, her berries run over with juice. Grapes make an appearance in almost all of her novels—in Beloved there is Mr. Garner’s grape arbor, which yields “grapes so little and tight. Sour as vinegar too.” In Song of Solomon Pilate makes wine from piles of grapes and the women eat the leftovers with hot bread and butter. In Paradise statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary are strangled by overgrown grapevines, and in Jazz there is Treason River, surrounded by hills covered in wild grapes.

My favorite of all of Morrison’s grape passages, however, takes place in The Bluest Eye, when Cholly and Darlene chase each other through a field of muscadine, tossing the grapes at each other and lying down, their mouths “full of the taste of muscadine, listening to the pine needles rustling loudly in their anticipation of rain.”

The grapes in this passage are ripe with possibility and promise—tasting their sourness is simply a reminder of what sweetness will eventually come. When I started seeing Concord grapes in the market a few weeks ago, I immediately thought of this book and that lonely, homesick time that feels so long ago now, when the grapes outside my window signaled to me not only respite from the heat of summer but also a time when my apartment might finally feel like my home.

The grapes on my fire escape are long gone now—my crazy landlord came at them with a weed whacker one day, convinced they were causing a bee infestation (I cried then, too), but my excitement over seeing them in the market hasn’t faltered. This sorbet is a perfect way to enjoy their sweet, musky flavor. The lemon cuts the grapes’ sweetness, and the wine makes their flavor a little more grown-up than the grape Popsicles of childhood. It is perfect on its own, in a cocktail, or sopped up with olive oil cake.

THE BLUEST EYE

Concord Grape Sorbet

Corn syrup keeps ice crystals from forming in the sorbet. If you don’t mind the crystals, you can use 6 tablespoons mild honey instead.

Makes about 1 quart

2½ pounds Concord grapes, stemmed and seeded (you can seed them in a food mill or a cherry pitter, or by hand with a knife)

½ cup corn syrup

¼ cup dry red wine

Juice of ½ a large lemon

Place the grapes in a food processor and blend until they form a smooth pulp. Transfer the pulp to a piece of cheesecloth set over a bowl and wring them out until all of the juice is released. Whisk the corn syrup, red wine, and lemon juice into the grape juice. Transfer the liquid to a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until the mixture just comes to a boil, about 5 minutes. Chill the base thoroughly and spin according to the ice cream maker’s instructions.