…is a mnemonic providing a very good example of homophones whilst confirming the lack of prejudice, lexicographic or otherwise, on this blog. It came to mind when I noticed that blackberries were suddenly in profusion, not so much on the walls, but very definitely in the bushes of La Moussiere.
These wonderful looking fruit demand to be picked. I have often wondered about the attritional nature of wild berry picking to foraging pioneers over the millenia and the scattered host of corpses, with carmine stained lips and fingers, that must have littered the lanes and hedgerows as a result of their, often, fatal choices. Blackberries look too good to be true, when they are in their pomp, and I am eternally grateful to those early foragers for their daredevil efforts which allow me to safely plunder the laden bushes that surround our home.
My berry foraging is, more often than not, without true purpose. Out of the corner of my eye I may notice the glossy roundness of a fat, ripe blackberry. I’ll stop, pick it and eat it and quite a few more of them if the brambles aren’t too annoying. As I’m eating them I’ll be asking myself why I have nothing, such as a basket, in which to collect some berries to take home. Once I’ve eaten my fill, or my attention has been taken by something else, the lack of a basket becomes a positive advantage. The blackberries that arrive in my kitchen are not from my hedgerows but from the rows of fruit in the market that someone, who knows his berries far better than I, has taken the time to gather with selective care rather than spontaneous pleasure as his prime purpose. I have made blackberry and apple things and tarts and cakes and slices with blackberries but I think I enjoy them most directly from the bush or chilled and macerated in a glass of Crème de Mûre.
Food, Photography & France 
Mmmm. Those blackberries look delicious! Berry picking does tend to end up being more for right-this-moment snacking than waiting to eat them later. They always just look too good to keep from eating right away!
I think that’s the best way to see blackberries in the wild:)
My berry picking tends to be more impromptu, as well. End up just eating most of them, which is fine! Love the freshness of macerating in cold Crème de Mûre.
It’s such a simple and delicious dessert…
Absolutely! I feel that cooking fresh berries a crime. 🙂 I also just eat them fresh off the plants when the vitamin C is 99.9% intact. I would bake only with accidently spoiled fruit. Macerating berries in liqueur sounds good!
The birds seem to get most of them around here:)
I always pick berries from bushes and brambles along the path where I walk my dog. I’m careful to pick only those beyond reach of a dog’s lifted leg though.
Very good point….although French farmers tend to piss at bushes from a higher level than even the most agile leg lifting dog:)
I’ll remember that. Anything a French farmer can do, a Sussex farmer can do better …
I often think the same – imagine all those poison mushrooms for starters. Good job they’d tested and approved blackberries by the time I was old enough to pick them 😉
Too right…imagine the first guy to think of opening and eating an oyster!
…or durian!
I always carry a plastic rubbish bag folded up in the side pocket of my camera bag (or jacket in winter). Comes in useful for shells down the beach, but in your case, it would come in useful for carrying wild blackberries home.
When I was small another family (and ours) would always go blackberry picking in summer. My Mother would spend hours bottling and making jam etc. then we would have them (and veg from our garden) all winter.
The preserving thing is such a sensible idea…..I’m just not very sensible….I still love other people’s jam and preserves:)
One summer, I think I picked 50 pounds of wild blackberries in the mountains. Took days to get the stains off my fingers………
We made blackberry liqueur with some of the haul. Have you ever considered that?
I’m considering it very seriosly…brilliant:)
I always appreciate fruit that’s hard won. Pomegranates and brambles in particular. So pretty, Roger.
My appreciation is boundless when someone gathers and prepares them for me:)
yum! 🙂
I like this one!
Excellent…I’m glad to hear it:)
Oh, this brings back memories of picking blackberries in Oregon! My mom was sure I’d get sick, but it didn’t happen. Bliss.
I’d like to visit Oregon…I hear they make pretty good wine too:)
Great post! Speaking of homophones there was a teacher last week who did a lesson on homophones and the principal didn’t get what homophones are and thought the teacher was promoting a homosexual lifestyle! It’s a nutty world.
Excellent…..:)
I have the same delicious issue with black-cap raspberries that grow on my property. =)
I’ve don’t know of black cap raspberries…back I go to google:)
Seriously? You’re not integrated if you don’t have a ‘au cas où’ bag with you at all times, just in case of blackberries, walnuts, mushrooms….. But are yours OK? In the South of France, where we were, they were too small, too sweet: a real disappointment to those of us raised on rugged, juicy, sweet-yet-acidic berries. I’m longing for ours to ripen up… a few more days yet……
I’m just not a forager, Margaret….my bag has cameras, and that’s it:)
Sadly, our bad winter killed off all the fruit-bearing canes. Steve got a handful to sprinkle over his yogurt and nothing else this year (after pounds and pounds and pounds last summer). Beautiful photos, but that’s a given.
Growing soft fruit must be a real gamble…great when it pays off, but….:)
Literally “fingerfood” , picked and going right into the mouth is the most pleasure. Do you a lso have wild strawberries, the tiny ones, growing wild, the have the most intense aroma. By the way what is Crème de Mure, something I am missing out?
We do have tiny “Fraise du bois” which are delicious, as you say. Creme de Mure is a blackberry liqueur. It’s often mixed with chilled white wine to make a Kir, which is an aperitif named after the mayor of Dijon, Canon Felix Kir, whose idea it was. The original Kir was made with Creme de Cassis ( blackcurrant liqueur) but Kir is now made with Mure and Peche as well.
Oh, now I know what you are talking about. Kir de Cassis with champagne I could have that form 5pm on…..
Or KIr Royale…..Vincent Vega would have liked that with his Cheese Royale:)
Along the way to Michigan, Roger, there are many “U Pick Em” farms, each offering a variety of fruits at greatly reduced prices. All you need do is go out into the fields/orchards and gather them. I’ve never gone because I fear the embarrassment of returning to the counter, hours later, with nary a berry in my basket but with face, hands, and shirt badly stained.
That’d be me as well, John:)
Lovely photos as usual
Nice one…thanks:)
they look divine, I am thinking of when I used to collect them as a twelve year old, construct punnets of them and try (unsuccessfully) to sell them to neighbours. So I would take them home instead an my mother would make fruit tarts with them. Thanks for bringing back my memories
Nice memories..if a child of twelve tried to sell them to neighbours nowadays I think the result would be the same…people would prefer to go the the supermarket and pay three times as much instead:)
In Spain they never make it home – also they’re really small and tend to dry out if you don’t pick them soon enough. In England they’re bigger and more abundant but like you I mainly prefer to leave the work to others and enjoy them in a glass of liqueur!
I think it’s the best way, all things considered:)
Oh my, I can almost taste them!
🙂
Mmmm sun warm blackberries straight off the bush… a lovely country childhood memory for me, and an occasional grown up one. Now the bushes are treated as a noxious plant, and unless growing on private property and sometimes even then, they are sprayed with poison. What annoys me more is that where there are now no blackberry bushes along roadsides because of this, there is rampant lantana which is noxious with no redeeming berry features.
That’s a sad state of affairs….but a sad sign of the times as well.