Blackberry Time

Hailing the Middle of Summer

When I lived for a time in California’s central valley, one of the (many) annual disappointments was the lackluster blackberry season. It was just too hot and dry for any real harvesting. I think there was a two week window when the berries growing along the river trail there in north Stockton were worth picking, but I always missed that window because I’m from Washington and “berry season” is the end of July/beginning of August, marking the turn of summer, fall looming on the horizon. About the time I’d think about pie and jam the berries there would be picked over by birds, and the few left would be dessicated tiny little things hardly worth the trouble.

One year we doggedly picked for a good half hour or so and netted just enough sad little berries to make an eight inch pie.

The only problem with blackberries up here in the PNW is that the invasive buggers will take over your property if you don’t keep whacking them back. This year some health issues in the spring meant that, after an initial foray into blackberry abatement, I dropped the ball and they got a toe hold. Again.

The only plus side to letting my guard down in the endless blackberry war is that I won’t have to go far to pick them this year. They’re up against the garage, chicken house, barn, and all along the fence line. I don’t even have to walk to the back of the pasture.

Before I go nuts and borrow the neighbor’s brush hog and/or spray something to kill them (again) I intend to pick and freeze a boat load. There will be pie. So much pie.¹ They really look good this year.

First pie of the year is a tart. There is no “just out of the oven” pic because it wasn’t very light in the kitchen when I hauled it out, so you get a “morning after” pic.

Talking about blackberries gives me yet another excuse to quote from one of my favorite comfort food novels, “The Elfin Ship” by James P. Blaylock.

“When dusk was just turning to night Jonathan and Dooly took a look outside and found that the creek, although muddy, hadn’t risen much at all. Dooly spotted a tangle of blackberry vines drooping over the bank, and he and Jonathan and Ahab took advantage of the last twenty minutes of daylight to pick a few quarts.

“A little trail ran along the bank and back up a wooded rise beyond, and Jonathan thought he could just see the corner of a cabin in the woods there a hundred yards or so beyond them. …They decided to make a cobbler out of the blackberries later in the evening, so Jonathan set about washing the bugs out of them and picking through to find the green ones. There’s no use souring up a cobbler because you’re afraid to waste a few green berries.

“Finally the berries were cleaned, the dishes were washed, the cabin was neat as it had to be, and there was nothing left to do but read or engage in serious discussions – in councils of war, as it were. They thought about it for a moment and came to the conclusion that a council of war would go much better in an hour or two over a hot cobbler.”

Cobbler is easy to whip up when you’re camping, or rafting as in the above case, but my favorite is pie. It will stain your teeth, though, so don’t forget to brush afterward. The worst instance of staining I ever ran into was when I did a cobbler in a dutch oven over a fire at a reenactment. Let’s just say that iron is a great dye activator, or mordant, as they say in fabric dying circles. We were the purple teeth people for a day. Worth it.

1. This post is also prompted by the fact that I woke up from a nap yesterday to find a big bowl of blackberries next to the kitchen sink. The tart is the result of that subtle hint.