Oh Joy of Joys! It’s blackberry season! If you haven’t found the joy of picking blackberries on a warm summer evening, you are missing a big slice of life. You don’t have to live in the country to find wild blackberries. Many areas are blessed or plagued, (depending on whether you are picking the berries or chopping down the vines) with blackberries. You can find them bordering country roads, in fields, along right of ways, in alleys and empty lots.
One of my greatest pleasures is going out on a warm summer evening to pick black berries. There seems to be a sort of peace that settles down as evening approaches. Birds are twittering their good nights to each other and little critters rustle among the brambles as they settle in for the evening. It’s a lovely, peaceful experience, but only if you leave your cell phone at home. And the pay off; fresh berries and cream for supper, like Flopsey, Mopsey & Cottontail. I pick berries as often as I can all during the season. I have a bowl of fresh berries and milk for my supper and those that are leftover go into the freezer for pies, turnovers, jams and preserves to be made at my leisure when the season is over.
Blackberries are one of our oldest crops. They have been used in Europe for thousands of years and Native Americans were using them long before the white man came to the new world. Most of the ones we find on the west coast are descendants of the Himalayan Blackberry, introduced by Luther Burbank in the 1880’s. It is obviously a very successful species, having naturalized with great abandon.
In old English folk lore you shouldn’t pick blackberries after September first because all the berries remaining on the vines at that time belong to the fairies and no one wants to risk angering them. Fresh blackberries are not only delicious, they are an excellent addition to the diet, being high in vitamin C, fiber and an excellent source of antioxidants. I hope you will enjoy a few evenings of berry picking and that you may make use of some of the following recipes: