I once read a wonderful story about Blackberry bushes. It was in the mid 90’s in a wonderful “new agey” kids book (or as my son called them until recently, “That weird hippy stuff you read mother”) and the premise was that the blackberry or black raspberry has a collective consciousness that extends all around the world. As you can probably guess, I loved the idea of that and I found it incredibly easy to believe.
You see, at that time that I read that I was still living on our farm in Burton Ohio and blackberries and black raspberries were everywhere. They drove my husband crazy. because if you’ve ever had a berry bush as a best friend, then you know just how prolific they really are. Every year before they’d flower, Jim would go into the brambles with his gloves and his clippers and every year he’d find more and more of them. Fortunately, when they began to flower, he’d have to leave them alone. Raspberries and Blackberries are a major source of sweet nectar for the honeybees. Jim’s quite allergic to almost everything, so if he missed a few the berries got their chance! Blackberry bushes are a bit like willow trees and If you drop just one clipping, within weeks it will have taken root and begun to spread. I love to imagine that they are all entwining their tendrils in the earth underfoot and that they are all connected just like my little book said.
By the time that we moved 21 years later, there were black raspberries and blackberries everywhere and to my absolute delight they’d become completely uncontrollable. They didn’t all ripen at the same times and they were all amazing.
We had our favorite patches but Alex and his oldest friend Jessica still swear by the ones that grew down by our pond. They didn’t start out down there , they came from some of the first clippings that my husband tossed over the fence as far away from the garden as he could find. Eventually my husband gave up and just forgot about trying to tame them. He’d settle for just trimming them a bit and then he’d join in the fun eating handful after handful. Those berries were incredibly sweet, juicy and delicious which the most sumptuous sensual scent. They were actually the size of quarters.
When they were little, Alex and his friends Tyler and Jessica used to spend hours eating their way around the brambles. They’d come running up with handfuls of the warm juicy berries for me and I loved them so much for the taste of course but more for the pleasure of knowing that these children that I adored were having an early experience of sustainability. We’d share them and then they’d go running off for more. I’d send them home covered in purple juice, thankfully their mothers forgave me! These are some of the best memories of my life. I made cobblers, pies and ice cream out of them and if you’ve never had a real black raspberry margarita then you don’t know what you’re missing. For some reason, tequila marries well with black raspberries, mint and a bit of sugar.
Black Raspberries and Meyer lemon juice mixed with sugar, branch water and cracked ice make a delightful and refreshing lemonade that is absolutely delicious and lovely to look at too! I do get teased a lot when I use the term “Branch Water “ by the way. Branch water is an old fashioned term I love, that was first introduced to me by my father who used to drink his single malt with it. If you’ve never heard of Branch Water, here’s the real definition which I find absolutely delightful.
“A term first used in the 1800s referring to pure, clean water from a tiny stream called a "branch." An order for "bourbon and branch" is a nostalgic request for bourbon and water. “ If you’re lucky enough to live by a natural and clean water source, I encourage you to try it, but if you’re not, I’ve discovered that maple sap water is one of the best mixers ever. It doesn’t really taste at all like maple syrup. It tastes clean and it’s full of minerals that are so good for you.
Red and Black Raspberries marry well with many different types of food, but the most impressively with pork and wild game. There’s something about the sweet yet acidic quality of the berries that cuts right through the fattiness of duck or goose and venison is never more luscious than when it’s glazed with a sauce of black raspberries , elderberries and red wine. I love to throw them into salads, combining them with raw pecans, red onions and mixed greens. If you need a bit of protein, sliced grilled chicken or duck breast will round out the flavors as will a sprinkling of fresh goat cheese which marries beautifully with the tanginess of the fresh berries. A simple vinaigrette made with olive oil, herbs and a light red wine will dress this salad perfectly. What you see above is my favorite way to eat them…fresh and sun warmed, on a cracker with a piece of brie and a little of the spearmint that grows underneath my blackberry canes. Talk about a perfect relationship. Blackberries and spearmint or for that matter, blackberries and basil are a delicious combination.
My first experience of the black raspberry as a medicinal tonic came when I was a child and I developed a serious tummy ache one day after eating too many pieces of very greasy pepperoni pizza. Instead of going for the antacid in the cupboard, my mother vey wisely took out the bottle of raspberry cordial that she kept in her medicine cabinet and poured a nice bit of it into a cup of hot water. She gave it to me to sip and it has been my favorite stomach tonic ever since. Raspberry leaf tea has always been one of the midwives best allies from conception to birth indeed it is said that drinking a tisane of clover and raspberry leaves can help promote fertility in women and virility in men! Raspberry leaves contain vast amounts of natural and easily assimilated vitamin C, B, A, E, Calcium and iron. A cup of raspberry tea made with the a bit of mint , raspberry fruit, dried nettles and alfalfa and the leaves helped ease my morning sickness and the well known abilities of that same tea to tone and strengthen the uterine muscles has helped prevent many a miscarriage over the centuries and helps with the bleeding and cleansing that all of our bodies go through after childbirth, allowing them to return quickly to their pre -pregnancy suppleness.
One word of caution though. If you are breast feeding, you may find that drinking the tea can either help the production of your breast milk or hinder it. If you fall into the latter category, try my favorite remedy instead. Two days after I gave birth to my son, Jim walked into the house carrying a case of really wonderful stout with instructions from his mother to have me drink one of them every afternoon at about 4:00 pm. There was much native wisdom in this prescription and when I asked my own mother about it she just laughed and said that my mother in law was absolutely correct and to do as she instructed . Drinking that one beer became such a relaxing part of my day and my breast milk was abundant. Another bonus was that Alex slept through the night before he was six weeks old probably due to the hops that it was laced with! Fruity Raspberry Lambic beer from Belgium is incredibly refreshing and wonderfully relaxing and would be a sweet and perfect substitution for someone who generally doesn't enjoy the bitter taste of beer.
It’s been 18 years now since we sold our farm and I miss those black raspberries every summer. Our Herban Farm is set in a wonderful city called Cleveland Heights, with a huge front porch and gardens that wrap around the whole lot. Alongside the 2 ancient apple trees that still live there happily, we’ve planted an entire orchard of ,cherries, pears, apples, plums, peaches and even a quince. It took me awhile but I finally broke my husband down. He’d said an absolute hard no to blackberries of any kind, but one day I came home with a newer thornless variety. He begrudgingly said okay to the one plant, but I know that he knew what was about to happen. We keep them in one spot, but that one plant has turned into about 20 feet of luscious canes that produce gallons of berries every year. There’s a huge patch of spearmint that grows underneath and up through the canes that is an excellent companion for the berries, attracting pollinators with its flowers and deterring pests with its strong scent. We do net them so that our harvest is protected, but before the end, I always remove the nets so that I can share the last of them with the birds we live with. In my mind, it only makes sense to let them have some too.
If you want to learn more about Raspberries and Blackberries, theres an excellent little book put by the International Herb Association all about them. Heres the link!
Memories of stained fingers as we never had to go inside for a snack or a drink during the summer as we played on our property that abutted acres and acres of woods, meadows and streams and simply packed with stands of black raspberry bushes! I can almost smell them, faintly now as I read this.