Grape Juice Freeze

This is a mid-meal ice rather than a dessert, and the original assumes a hand-cranked freezer packed with ice and rock salt. It gives no quantities at all, so treat it as a formula and taste as you go.

• Proportions are left to the cookNo amounts appear in the original. A workable starting point is 3 cups grape juice diluted with 1 cup water, the juice of one orange and half a lemon, and 1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar; adjust before freezing, since cold mutes sweetness and acid noticeably.
• "Ice and salt mixture 4 to 1"Four parts crushed ice to one part rock salt by volume, packed around the freezer can. The salt drops the brine below 32F so the mixture can actually freeze.
• Without a crank freezerPour the liquid into a shallow metal pan, freeze, and scrape with a fork every 30 minutes until it is coarse and slushy, about 2 to 3 hours. A food processor pulse of frozen cubes gets you there faster.
• Stop at mushyThis is meant to be granita-textured, not scoopable. Frozen solid it becomes a block of grape ice and loses the point, which is a loose, melting spoonful that refreshes the palate.
• Sugar is structuralSugar keeps the ice soft, and a low-sugar mixture will freeze harder and coarser. The amounts suggested above are already on the lean side, so cut the sugar further only if you accept a firmer, more solid freeze.
• Grape juice has changedBottled Concord juice today is commonly reconstituted from concentrate, and some products are sweetened or are grape drinks rather than juice. Taste it before adding sugar; unsweetened juice will need the full amount, a sweetened one may need almost none.
• ServingSherbet cups hold roughly 4 to 6 oz, and the portion should be small, two or three spoonfuls. The quantities above make about a quart, which at that size will serve well more than six to eight as a course between the roast and what follows. Chill the glasses first.