For black seedless grape marmalade*

2 pounds seedless black grape with stems still on [Or 6 1/2 cups of grape, removed from their stems]

1/2 cup sugar


* Makes about 1 1/8 cups [10 oz] of marmalade

1. Remove grapes from stems.

2. Wash grapes and drain of excess water.

3. - Version 3A. Place the grapes in a large bowl and "crush" them so that some of the juice is released (The end result should be similar to what one would get if one were making wine and one would put the grapes through a crusher).

- Version 3B. Place the grapes in an electric chopper, chopping up the grapes very COARSELY (Do NOT puree!!!). However, manually crushing the grapes against the bowl or squishing the grapes in between one's fingers will produce a better-tasting grape pulp.

- Version 3C. Slice each grape in half or quarter them (depending on the size).

4. Place the "crushed" or "sliced" grapes in a non-stick cooking pan.

5. Bring to a boil.

6. Add half a cup of sugar and mix well.

7. Lower heat, and simmer for about 1 3/4 hours, frequently stirring the mixture (as it could easily burn, especially towards the latter part of the cooking process). When the mixture has sufficiently thickened and/or has the look of a marmalade, it is "done."

8. Place the marmalade in a glass Mason jar. Cover and keep in the fridge until needed.

9. When needed remove from the fridge, and serve at room temperature.

For the traditional recipe for making wine grape marmalade see "Wine Grape Marmalade, Version I." This recipe is adapted from that one. Frankly, wine grape marmalade made in the traditional manner with Alcante-type black wine grape [The grapes are small and have a blue-black tint -- for a picture of "Alcante" grapes see "Grape Marmalade, Version II"] is way superior to the marmalade made following this recipe which uses "SEEDLESS" black grape. There is no question about that. However, using Alcante grape to make marmalade takes a great deal of time and effort as each individual grape has to be manually de-seeded. I decided to try out seedless black grape, curious to know what the end result would be. To my pleasant surprise seedless black grape made a nice enough grape marmalade. It's certainly better than any commercial grape jelly that is on the market (in my opinion). In any case, for any Italian North American who grew up in the 1960s and might be nostalgic for this style of grape marmalade and does not have the time to do the marmalade the traditional way (The right way!) this is a good alternative, and worth a try (At least once!). P.S. I also tried to make marmalade out of green (or "white") seedless grape but the end result tasted quite awful, so I would not recommend using it to make marmalade.... P.S. My aunt, Zia Rosina Melfi, a first generation Italian-Canadian who grew up in Casacalenda in the 1930s, says that once she hit the big 80, she too started to use seedless black grape to make wine-grape marmalade (This I hadn't known... I had assumed the use of seedless black grape was an original idea, silly me!). Photo: by the contributor.

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