Blackberry hoard has been dismal down in Dartmouth this year ... and someone has nicked all the apples from the Community Orchard (happened last year too) so no apple and blackberry brown betty for me !!!
This is a wonderful description of blackberries and blackberrying – I also grew up with access to a Beeching blackberry bed. I love the idea of making blackberry vinegar.
I'm sure there is a fortune to be made in making people very happy by keeping things somehow paired (without the space it would take to keep the lids always on)
I keep my Tupperwares in the drawer of an old chest of drawers ... with their lids on. If I can't fit them in the drawer, I reckon I have too many Tupperwares...
I loved reading this article. Brought back many happy memories of blackberry picking with my family as a child. The scent of bubbling apples and blackberries and the resulting jars of apple and blackberry jam en masse. I adore them. Each year I try to find some to pick. It is a treat to find them.
Thank you for the recipes and for writing such an evocative read.
Oh, thank you, you have just reminded me of my favourite childhood dessert - although it went by the rather lovelier name of Peasant Girl With Veil in our house. It was my late mum's speciality and I have the recipe on a scrap of paper in her handwriting. I shall be digging that out this weekend and using some of the early cookers, layered up with sweet crumbs and topped with double cream and a scratching of dark chocolate. Alas, no blackberries though; partly because I'm not sure that I can bear to change the recipe, but also having a pip-averse husband means that the blackberry harvest is destined to be hedgerow jelly...
A scratching of dark chocolate sounds very very good, although a pip-averse husband sounds less so! This is the sort of thing we should all find out before we decide on a life partner. I love the name you had for the recipe - isn't that just poetic. I bet it tastes as good as you remember it
I hope so! I believe it has Danish origins, but was no doubt featured in a 1970s edition of the Good Housekeeping recipe book or some such. I do find I'm getting somewhat pip-averse myself now that my fillings are getting older! 😬
Blackberries being a Tom Waits song, and that song in particular, is a perfect description.
I made a big batch of blackberry wine a few years ago that wasn't up to scratch, so I turned it into a vinegar that is heavenly. I love using it for blackberry oxymels and switchels. Last year I was really on it with dehydrating and grinding lots of blackberries to add to my bilberry powder for adding to yoghurt and porridge through the year too, but I have been way less organised this summer.
Thank you Sarah - that song is really something isn't it. I love that you turned something you weren't happy with into something wonderful - the best alchemy. And yes, we can't expect ourselves to be so organised every summer!
I love a good blackberry foraging session - they do seem to be getting earlier, or is that just me getting older and nostalgic? My mum and her friends would round up a dozen of us kids and take us to the country park with stacks of old ice cream tubs and yoghurt pots to fill with fruit. Then crumble for weeks, and stewed apple and blackberry to go on our porridge.
Regarding the blackberry whisky, it also works terribly well with brandy. And infusing them from August to December makes it a perfect Christmas tipple to have with Christmas pud.
I think it might be both of us getting older and nostalgic, plus the *seem* so autumnal! And I now have to try to find more blackberries to try in brandy, thank you - I do love brandy at Christmas, so this would be especially good for me
My god that crumble looks good! To this day Tupperware is one of my pet hates. My husband has a fetish for small food containers and likes to decant everything. I’ve recently invested in glass ones with clip on lids to replace the baked bean stained plastic ones. I am overjoyed.
You took me back to my childhood, where blackberry bushes surrounded my grandma's house. Picking them and eating them straight off the vine brought so much joy (cuts and purple mouth)—the taste was incomparable to the store-bought ones. The only issue were snakes hiding among the bushes, sometimes a bit territorial. I love the idea of making both whisky and vinegar! I've made blackberry liqueur before, but your recipes are far more appealing. Thank you!
You have brought back memories of our blackberrying days as children, scrambling through the thickets trying not to get too many prickles, but oh my, the juiciness of that fruit and the delicious flavour, far outweighing the blandness of what you can buy in the supermarket, so bland I can’t bring myself to spend money on them. You are brave growing your own blackberries, even if thornless. One of our neighbours has one in their garden also, and from time to time we get suckers coming through our fence, but not enough to bear fruit.
Apple and BlackBerry Crumble. You, Sir, are spoiling us. And I love that you may have a slice of your audience furrowing their brows. Jaspers, they ask, puzzling with the name. Schooling in Cornwall and Devon drummed into me the perils of waspish jaspers patrolling the hedgerows!
I loved the story about Satan landing arse first in a blackberry bush! I haven’t heard that before 😂 perhaps he wouldn’t have cursed it if he knew your delicious crumble recipe!
Ironic that the Oregon Thornless (Rubus Fruticosus) cannot be found in the Pacific Northwest, and the native Pacific blackberry (Rubus Ursinus) is all but choked out by the nasty, invasive, extremely thorny and aggressive Himalayan blackberry (Rubus Armeniacus) bred by American horticulturist (and eugenicist) Luther Burbank. It grows everywhere, and must be rooted out or it will take over entire trees, but the fruit, while hard won, can be lovely. The berries come in before the apples, so it's peach-blackberry cobbler, blackberry jelly, and blackberry shrub for us.
That is such great knowledge - thank you so much for sharing it. Blackberry shrub has much in common with that 'vinegar' recipe doesn't it - one of my favourite ways with blackberries. And funny you should mention a cobbler - I used to make them occasionally around the time I discovered a brown betty but haven't for far too long - thank you for the reminder, I shall make one!
Blackberry hoard has been dismal down in Dartmouth this year ... and someone has nicked all the apples from the Community Orchard (happened last year too) so no apple and blackberry brown betty for me !!!
That is just so mean!
Gah, that's awful! Perhaps a market or shop might be able to help with this terrible situation
Just checking as I really want to do the blackberry whisky. Is 70 mls really the amount of whisky as it does’nt seem a lot. Thanks for recipe though.
GAH! 70cl! About to edit...thank you
This is a wonderful description of blackberries and blackberrying – I also grew up with access to a Beeching blackberry bed. I love the idea of making blackberry vinegar.
Thank you Lizzie. And I hope you give the vinegar a go - it's very good indeed
I can't believe this poem has eluded me until now. We've been gazing at the raspberry-coloured blackberries for weeks, wondering when they'll be ours.
It's such a odd thing how blackberries are over for some and way behind for others! I'm glad to make a friend of the poem for you
Love the Tupperware crisis. Always fulfilling and excellent therapy when you find a lid to fit the base!
I'm sure there is a fortune to be made in making people very happy by keeping things somehow paired (without the space it would take to keep the lids always on)
I keep my Tupperwares in the drawer of an old chest of drawers ... with their lids on. If I can't fit them in the drawer, I reckon I have too many Tupperwares...
I loved reading this article. Brought back many happy memories of blackberry picking with my family as a child. The scent of bubbling apples and blackberries and the resulting jars of apple and blackberry jam en masse. I adore them. Each year I try to find some to pick. It is a treat to find them.
Thank you for the recipes and for writing such an evocative read.
Thank you Kim - it's such a distinctive combination isn't it, and odd that it may be the one form of foraging almost everyone did then
Oh, thank you, you have just reminded me of my favourite childhood dessert - although it went by the rather lovelier name of Peasant Girl With Veil in our house. It was my late mum's speciality and I have the recipe on a scrap of paper in her handwriting. I shall be digging that out this weekend and using some of the early cookers, layered up with sweet crumbs and topped with double cream and a scratching of dark chocolate. Alas, no blackberries though; partly because I'm not sure that I can bear to change the recipe, but also having a pip-averse husband means that the blackberry harvest is destined to be hedgerow jelly...
A scratching of dark chocolate sounds very very good, although a pip-averse husband sounds less so! This is the sort of thing we should all find out before we decide on a life partner. I love the name you had for the recipe - isn't that just poetic. I bet it tastes as good as you remember it
I hope so! I believe it has Danish origins, but was no doubt featured in a 1970s edition of the Good Housekeeping recipe book or some such. I do find I'm getting somewhat pip-averse myself now that my fillings are getting older! 😬
Blackberries being a Tom Waits song, and that song in particular, is a perfect description.
I made a big batch of blackberry wine a few years ago that wasn't up to scratch, so I turned it into a vinegar that is heavenly. I love using it for blackberry oxymels and switchels. Last year I was really on it with dehydrating and grinding lots of blackberries to add to my bilberry powder for adding to yoghurt and porridge through the year too, but I have been way less organised this summer.
Thank you Sarah - that song is really something isn't it. I love that you turned something you weren't happy with into something wonderful - the best alchemy. And yes, we can't expect ourselves to be so organised every summer!
I love a good blackberry foraging session - they do seem to be getting earlier, or is that just me getting older and nostalgic? My mum and her friends would round up a dozen of us kids and take us to the country park with stacks of old ice cream tubs and yoghurt pots to fill with fruit. Then crumble for weeks, and stewed apple and blackberry to go on our porridge.
Regarding the blackberry whisky, it also works terribly well with brandy. And infusing them from August to December makes it a perfect Christmas tipple to have with Christmas pud.
I think it might be both of us getting older and nostalgic, plus the *seem* so autumnal! And I now have to try to find more blackberries to try in brandy, thank you - I do love brandy at Christmas, so this would be especially good for me
My god that crumble looks good! To this day Tupperware is one of my pet hates. My husband has a fetish for small food containers and likes to decant everything. I’ve recently invested in glass ones with clip on lids to replace the baked bean stained plastic ones. I am overjoyed.
You JP have ascended to the next tier of evolution! But we knew this already...I shall, again, go in search for one of your excellent ideas, thank you
You took me back to my childhood, where blackberry bushes surrounded my grandma's house. Picking them and eating them straight off the vine brought so much joy (cuts and purple mouth)—the taste was incomparable to the store-bought ones. The only issue were snakes hiding among the bushes, sometimes a bit territorial. I love the idea of making both whisky and vinegar! I've made blackberry liqueur before, but your recipes are far more appealing. Thank you!
Wasps and stingers are one thing...snakes quite another! I admire your bravery
To be young and foolish… but you have to admit that those blackberries are worth it.
You have brought back memories of our blackberrying days as children, scrambling through the thickets trying not to get too many prickles, but oh my, the juiciness of that fruit and the delicious flavour, far outweighing the blandness of what you can buy in the supermarket, so bland I can’t bring myself to spend money on them. You are brave growing your own blackberries, even if thornless. One of our neighbours has one in their garden also, and from time to time we get suckers coming through our fence, but not enough to bear fruit.
Supermarket ones are almost always thin and bland aren't they...often in inverse proportion to their plump appearance!
Apple and BlackBerry Crumble. You, Sir, are spoiling us. And I love that you may have a slice of your audience furrowing their brows. Jaspers, they ask, puzzling with the name. Schooling in Cornwall and Devon drummed into me the perils of waspish jaspers patrolling the hedgerows!
ha ha, I forgot that the non-southwesters might not know what a jasper is!
I quite like that there’s an ‘in crowd’ for niche wasp names!
I loved the story about Satan landing arse first in a blackberry bush! I haven’t heard that before 😂 perhaps he wouldn’t have cursed it if he knew your delicious crumble recipe!
I think you might be right Sam!
Love love... thank you.
Thank you Lalita!
Ironic that the Oregon Thornless (Rubus Fruticosus) cannot be found in the Pacific Northwest, and the native Pacific blackberry (Rubus Ursinus) is all but choked out by the nasty, invasive, extremely thorny and aggressive Himalayan blackberry (Rubus Armeniacus) bred by American horticulturist (and eugenicist) Luther Burbank. It grows everywhere, and must be rooted out or it will take over entire trees, but the fruit, while hard won, can be lovely. The berries come in before the apples, so it's peach-blackberry cobbler, blackberry jelly, and blackberry shrub for us.
That is such great knowledge - thank you so much for sharing it. Blackberry shrub has much in common with that 'vinegar' recipe doesn't it - one of my favourite ways with blackberries. And funny you should mention a cobbler - I used to make them occasionally around the time I discovered a brown betty but haven't for far too long - thank you for the reminder, I shall make one!