I salute you sir. You give light and sugar sweet joy as the summer bows out. You give hope in the winter, fresh from the freezer, stew, and on to the plate alongside a fine Greek yoghurt.
I love everything about Blackberry season. The pretty humble pink flowers, a cushion of comfort over the thorny heart. The host plant is merely seen as a weed and yet grows where nobody else wants to grow. Even the picking is an occasion.
When I was a boy, when homelife seemed somewhat fraught and full of friction, my Mother and I used to wander off into the fields, chat, pick, get pricked, stung, but conversation was so easy and we wandered from hedge to hedge, on our return we had colanders full and brains untangled.
Even last week, we, Mother and son, 30 years later ventured across the fields of Langabridge, the crop was still in its infancy, but our fingers soon became deep purple and our arms scratched and stung, fizzing with the experience, but buzzing with the catch. What is also so enriching is that the hunt takes you to parts of the field boundaries you would never normally think of going to, little nooks and crannies, undulations, trees and shrubs you’ve never noticed before.
There is that hunter gathering notion, that sense of bringing in the harvest before all is lost that is so satisfying. Like chopping and stacking wood, ready for the damp, dark days ahead, you feel you are ready to hunker down, come on Winter, we can take you on, we’re ready, we’ve got our supplies, like the squirrels have their nuts and the voles have their moss…
And then there is the eating, god, so many options: frozen berries in your yoghurt, keeps it chilled ready for lunch, or stewed with Bramleys, that deep purple pervading the very essense of the apple, served alongside ice cream, or in a bloody crumble, how good is that?, burnt and a bubblin’ around the dish as you bring the bad boy out of the Aga, oh lord, blackberry, you are the king; Raspberry, Strawberry, Mr Blackcurrant, the rueful rhubarb, you are all lovely but move along, as Mr B, you rock.
