Despite the exciting abundance available at farmers’ markets all summer, it’s not until the concord grapes arrive in early fall that the true celebration of the New England harvest begins.  Tonight, as I enjoyed my first bunch of the season’s juicy, purple slip-skin bounty, I began to investigate their unique place in my local and cultural foodshed. Love them or hate them, concord grapes are a symbol of New England history and harvest, having been developed in Concord, MA in 1849.

In 1853, the grapes won first place in the Boston Horticultural Society Exhibition, and according to The Forward, that history is tied up with the history of their founder, Ephraim Wales Bull, a nativist and potential anti-semite. Before their use in Kosher wine was adopted by New York’s Sam Schapiro, explains the article, the grapes were championed by Bull as being native-American and superior to their “too tender Syrian brothers,” a potential reference to the Semitic immigrants Bull would have resented as a Nativist. Although we may never know the intention of Bull’s comments, we can savor the fruits of his labor, via wine or straight from the vine.