Living in a world of freeways, industrialized farming, and other regimented, unspontaneous matrices of nature and modernity, one fantasizes about stumbling upon or even foraging for truly wild food (or at least I do). Fiddlehead ferns. Morel mushrooms. Wild strawberries. But that never happens. Sure we’ve got our lovely farmer’s markets who traffic in such stuff, but that’s still a comparmentalized, tidy thing (admittedly such a foodie, first world complaint). So imagine our delight when on vacation in Ireland we happened upon, by the side of the road, wild blackberries. Here they are. Gorgeous. And, honestly, a bit tart. While my mind instantly went to ways of sweetening them up with sugar and serving with roasted duck or quail or pork, or on pancakes, or in a muddled cocktail, my kids thought otherwise. Well, Violet wasn’t crazy for them, but acid freak Desi seemed pretty content. Keep in mind, he’s the one who likes sucking the juice out of half a lemon left out after dinner prep. The guy foraging for the lemon wedge garnish on the cocktail. He was wild about the wild blackberries. The rest of us, well, we were feeling a bit domesticated.
—Hugh
I live in Marin where wild blackberries grow like weeds. If you plan an August visit to Point Reyes for your next foodie-family-friendly vacation, you can go berry picking for SWEET berries. We’re in the tail-end of the season right now, and I’ve made blackberry galettes, blackberry syrup for waffles & ice cream, and one precious jar of blackberry jam.
From the photo, it looks like the berries you picked weren’t quite ripe enough. You shouldn’t have to pull them off the vines – they should pretty much fall off into your hands. Sometimes the berries collapse into juice as you try to pick them – those go into your mouth, not the bucket.