Sweet Treat: Time is now for sea grape jelly
If it’s fall, it must be time for sea grape jelly. But hurry; the Sanibel Cafe will run out of the tasty treat quickly, said Ken Loewit, the cafe’s co-owner and the cook in the kitchen.
“We get (people) all the time saying they’ve never heard of sea grape jelly, or they can’t believe it,” Loewit said. “But they taste it and can’t wait for the season to start.”
Along with its other jams and jellies, Sanibel cafe introduced sea grape jelly in 2011. The restaurant is known among tourists and islanders for its raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, blackberry and a seasonal mango jam, Loewit said, but wanted a flavor distinctive to Southwest Florida and Sanibel. Sea grapes don’t get much farther north than Florida, unable to survive frost. It’s a popular landscape and ornamental plant and makes a tasty wine, but its use as a condiment isn’t common, Loewit said.
And that was exactly what inspired his decision to tool with a sea grape recipe.
Because sea grapes are limited, Loewit produces only a couple of cases of jelly. He boils the grapes, strains the juice, adds two ingredients and jars the delicious treat. It has a sweet berry flavor that would serve well on crackers. He’ll spend many hours in late summer cooking fruit for jellies and jams served at the cafe, he said. The two men purchased the spot on Periwinkle Way in 2006.
“I’m just happy to share an island experience,” Loewit said.
Sanibel Cafe sea grape jelly sells for about $11 a jar, $7 for the berry-flavored jams. The store is in the Tahitian Gardens complex, 2007 Periwinkle, or visit sanibelcafe.com.