Ever thought about how our ancestors gathered food? It is really quite a challenge and trying to do so yourself helps you understand why our society is so fat and overindulged.
We are at our home in Panama City this weekend, spending time with my 99-year-old father-in-law while my sister-in-law (my FIL’S primary caregiver) is out of town relaxing with her husband, two daughters and their spouses.
Our Panama City house is our “hunting house”, a modest brick home located at the edge of a 5100 acre hunting lease known as the “Downtown Hunt Club”. We don’t own the 5100 acres ourselves, of course, just a small 20 acre piece of it. For hunting, the small 20 acre piece is all we need for our shooting range and hunting houses. But for wild food gathering, that’s another story entirely and you need lots of land, 100s of acres. And, of course, I consider all the 5100 acres my own.
So early this morning, I was walking alone in “my woods” and came upon lots of wild grapes! It was an exciting but an unexpected delight as I thought all the grapes ripened in August. So, back to the house I went and grabbed a plastic storage box with which to collect my grapes.
Two hours later, I walked home with about 3 and one-half cups of grapes. Thinking I was so smart and industrious, I then went on the internet to research making wine or jelly from my lovely grapes. “Grape jelly, here I come!”
Various blogs on the internet taught me that three and one-half cups won’t get you much!!! It takes about six 5 gallon buckets of wild grapes to make 15 bottles of wine. And to make jelly, it requires 4 cups of undiluted grape juice to 1 package of Sure-Jell and some sugar.
Sounds like it’s back to the woods for me. Hopefully, these grapes will last in the refrigerator until I can get more! I am guessing it’s going to take me a few more walks to gather enough for some jelly.
Time to get my walking shoes on …
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