The great bounty of the late summer woods and abandoned fields is the blackberry, ripening in large jeweled trusses, colors deepening from pink to deep warm black; the fruit grows moist and plump as each little sphere of the berry matures. The plant is well protected: it is the most bramble-y of the bramble fruits, making picking something of a battle as your clothing and skin gets caught by the long spines. There's always a beautiful bunch of ripe berries just out of reach across a welter of thorny branches; attempting to collect them, my hat, shirt, hands get caught.
But it is certainly worth the trouble: good fresh eating in the woods, a pie for friends, batches of very tasty jam, which I cook using the same recipe as for raspberry jam. Blackberries turn out to be useful for more than food; in this post on the blog Silkenwind, we learn of using their juice for dyeing fabric, another gift from the wild.
Two beautiful examples of summer bounty in that last photo. Both look yummy.
ReplyDeleteWe dont have quite that same berry tradition in this environment. A bit too hot....strawberries yes....but i dont know that that leads to a lot of home cooking...rather...just plain old eating the berries fresh.
ReplyDeleteMind you there was an episode of jam making in this house not so long ago and that strawberry jam has been very delicious. Love the pie you made Altoon!