It is a strange world indeed when strawberries and blackberries come out at once, and yet last weekend I found myself blackberrying in England in mid-July. I was visiting Tom for the week and we set off Saturday morning, Tupperware in hand, to see if the roadsides of Warwickshire were going to be as obliging as our one, thumb-thick branch at home, a welcome trespasser from next door’s garden (from which all our good plants come; sadly green fingers still elude me). 
We didn’t have to walk far, a spring of faintly bipolar weather, with rainstorms following on from heatwaves, had so badly confused the hedgerows that they were already bowed with ripe and swollen fruit as well as plenty of juicy looking red berries, as a promise of even better foraging not too far in the future. Blackberries amounting to maybe four supermarket punnets, and all for the price of a bit of nettle sting and a few scratches from the brambles!
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| my lovely hoard from Coventry |
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| my garden's offerings! |
It’s been years since I last looked at this poem, or the Sylvia Plath one I borrowed for the title, but my activities over the last few days have dug it out from some dusty Filofax in my memory;
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. The red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet gras bleached our boots.
Round hayfiends, cornfields and potato drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinklist bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. The red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet gras bleached our boots.
Round hayfiends, cornfields and potato drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinklist bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
(Blackberry picking, Seamus Heaney)Having no byre or bathtub to store my berries in, and definitely not wanting any mould, I gifted my loot to Tom's mum, who's frozen them and promised a pie next time I visit.
I still had plenty (alright, some) left from my own garden to make a few friands though. Or financiers, depending on where in the world you heard of them first.
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| blackberry... |
Miniature Blackberry Friands (adapted from Tartelette)Makes about 30 in a mini cupcake pan
115g butter
100g caster sugar
60g ground almonds
30 plain flour
~30 berries
I'm not home for very long, so I substituted whole eggs for the usual whites, as I didn't feel like making emergency custard, or throwing out good yolks. I also switched the rice flour, as I don't need to bake gluten free, and obviously subbed fresh berries for Tartelette's jam.
I love my sister's mini cupcake pans. A bite sized cake with a whole berry nearly filling the middle just explodes with juice between your teeth.
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| ...and raspberry! |
1. Melt 115g of butter in a pan (I use salted and just don't add any more later). Heat until brown flecks appear and the kitchen smells hazelnutty and warm. DO NOT leave this butter browning alone. Keep it compant, otherwise it has the habit of burning as soon as your back is turned.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients, add the eggs, mixing a little after each one.
3. Add the butter. Only after it has cooled a little though, you do not want to scramble your eggs. Mix.
4. Plop a little mixture into your cases, only filling halfway up. Muffin tops are like, so totally out this summer. Pop a berry into the centre of each one and push down a bit. Archimedes' Law is another good reason not to overfill before you do this.
5. Bake in 180C for 12-14 mins, but keep an eye on the first batch because these teeny cakes burn in a flash. For 'normal' one, bake 15-20 mins
6. Eat! Delicious warm with the blackberry still hot and jammy, or cool with a cuppa and maybe the smallest bit of thick cream.
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| Who needs a BlackBerry? |
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