Hello. Mistels here. Back in early June, I pitched a piece about blackberries to an editor who was very keen and wanted copy in a week. I delivered. They disappeared. For three months, I’ve waited for an answer to the question: Do you know when this will run and if it won’t, will you please tell me? It’s funny, I suppose in a not-so-funny-way, because one of the points of my piece is that you cannot lollygag when it comes to blackberries. There is a window. You must seize the moment. After three months, there are no more blackberries in my corner of Kent. Rather than continuing to shout into the void, I’m posting my piece here. Because really, it’s not about the paltry sum one gets paid when commissioned for such a piece. It’s about getting to share one’s thoughts and enthusiasm for a specific subject that hopefully, others will also be enthusiastic about. At least for me, that is the point. Without further ado, blackberries. If for whatever reason, you are a lucky so and so with a glut of them but you have eaten all you can eat, your larder is stacked with jam, and your freezer is full, might I recommend making shrub? My recipe for it follows.
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Roses are blooming all around which means I can’t help thinking about brambles. The blackberries grow amongst the dog roses in my garden, canes and stems entwined. Edith Holden illustrated them this way in The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady so that is how I planted them. They’re little green bulbous things at the moment and hard as rocks, but experience tells me they’ll be ripe in July.
Wild blackberries are my favourite high summer scent. Their fragrance is evocative of childhood–of purple stains and scratches on your skin or the first lip gloss I ever bought. My cousins and I used to spend summer days running barefoot through the fields around my Aunt Colleen’s house in Iowa until lightning bugs lit up the sky. Coco Bean, as we called her, would send us out to collect blackberries for pie, but we could never help ourselves. We always ate most of them then told her we couldn’t find any. Such terrible little liars were we, our hands and mouths gave us away. Talk about the mark of Cain, cane more like.
Technically, blackberries aren’t berries at all but an aggregate of drupelets. Each fruit is like a cluster of grapes. Taste a ripe one. The first thing you’ll notice is that the juicy sweetness quickly gives way to a tartness sure to tweak salivary glands. Blackberries are bitier than raspberries and sturdier thanks to the presence of a core. From Hackney Marshes to the heaths, behind council flats in south east London, rampant in cemeteries in Kent, or grown espalier in walled gardens of Jacobean manor houses oop North, blackberries thrive any and everywhere. They are most egalitarian.
No wonder they are strongly rooted in folklore. Where we live in Kent, the first blackberries are to be left for the faerie folk. Go to the old cemetery and you will see brambles planted on top of grave stones. They were once believed to keep the dead in and the devil out. Blackberries debut in July but beware eating them past Michelmas. Lucifer was thrown out of heaven that day. After falling through the sky and landing in prickly brambles, he cursed them. Kitchen witches swear blackberry honey is the best medicine for a sore throat. During the American Civil War, Union and Confederate soldiers declared temporary truces to forage for blackberries so they could make tea for sick men. The brew was widely known as a remedy for dysentery.
The magic of blackberries is that their flavour is equally good fresh or frozen. A few frozen berries added to apple crumbles, cobblers, or pies helps bring a taste of summer to the darkest months of the year. If you have a surfeit of blackberries, steep them in vinegar to make a shrub, a sharp tasting cordial. You can also steep them in alcohol to make crème de mûre, an essential ingredient in the Bramble, a cocktail created by barman Dick Bradsell as an homage to the blackberry-scented summers of his youth. Bake them with brie, pickle them to add piquancy to sandwiches and salads, turn them into jam, or enjoy them straight from the cane as Beatrix Potter’s rabbits did. Though there are thornless varieties, the most flavourful berries come from canes with thorns that prick you and stick to your skin. Sometimes one must experience pain to taste paradise. Cf. the revellers in Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.
Heed the warning: there is a window. Summer rain brings blackberries to life, but storms decimate them. One week they’re perfect. The next, they’re bloated and fermenting. On the other end of the weather spectrum, severe dry spells and heat waves can make them wither instantly. ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,’ Robert Herrick advised. No offence to the poet, but he should have added ‘Ye blackberries too!’
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SHRUB RECIPE
Blackberry shrub is very easy to make. It can take a few days, but that’s just waiting time. All that’s required is equal parts fruit, sugar, and vinegar.
Ingredients:
blackberries
caster or granulated sugar
apple cider vinegar
aromatics like a bay leaf or a bit of lemon peel or lavender are optional
Method:
Weigh your blackberries.
Macerate them with an equal amount of sugar and vinegar. Add aromatics if you fancy it. I always add some, but remove them after a few hours so their flavour doesn’t overpower the blackberries. Cover this mixture and leave it in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours or up to 3 days. I usually sample my shrub after day 1 to see if it needs adjusting–more sugar, more vinegar. Make the recipe suit you.
Sieve the mixture or use a cheesecloth to strain it.
To serve: Add the shrub to sparkling or tonic water to taste. I usually use only a tablespoon or two and drink it over ice. Top it up with whatever calls you–gin, vodka, a drop of white port. Or drink it alcohol free. It’s refreshing no matter how you have it. Garnish with a sprig of rosemary, lavender, or thyme if you like. Add berries of any kind.
Chagrinnamon Toast 