Blackberries

August is the month when blackberries ripen in the forest near our home.  They are so sweet and juicy straight from the cane.  However, we do try to bring enough home to be used for jam, compote and desserts.  It's not easy!

I thought I'd share some interesting facts and stories I discovered about this berry.

Rubus fruticosus is native to both North America and Europe.  There is forensic evidence that the Heraldskjaer Woman, whose body was found naturally preserved in a bog in Jutland, Denmark, ate blackberries 2,500 years ago. The ancient Greeks and Romans used it as medicine, while native Americans are known to have used it as food, medicine and dye.  There is an old English legend that blackberries should not be picked after October 11th.  Why?  Because after Lucifer was thrown out of heaven by the archangel Saint Michael on that day (Michaelmas Day on the old calender, now September 29th), he fell to earth and landed on a blackberry shrub. Since then he spits and urinates on blackberry shrubs annually on October 11th.  (According to Wikipedia there is some value to this legend as in wetter and cooler weather the plant is susceptible to various molds which give the fruit an unpleasant look and can be toxic.)

The word for blackberry in Polish is jeżyna (pronounced yeh-ZHIN-ah).  Where I grew up in Wisconsin, we called them "blackcaps."

Below are two poems about blackberry picking. The first is one of my favorites by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney; the second is my amateurish attempt, written many summers ago here in Poland.

BLACKBERRY-PICKING

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. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
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.

Seamus Heaney


A thought for blackberry pickers

The argus bush has beady eyes
     Of glinting black and red,
Whose arms of claws that grasp and tear
     Would like to choke you dead,
Would pull you down and bury you
     Beneath their leafy bed.
Those staring fruits that lured you there
     Would feed on you instead.

Randall Peaslee