This is how to forage blackberries
There is a bank of brambles on the little lane that runs between the houses a few doors up from my house, and it will shortly be gleaming with deep purple fruits. Unfortunately, this lane also happens to be on the route to the local primary school, and well used during the summer holidays too, and little fingers cannot resist blackberries, shiny and dark and promising sweetness and a burst of juice.
I’m not sure that many of these blackberries are allowed to reach full ripeness: the moment they turn even slightly purple, they are plucked off of the thicket and stuffed into eager mouths.
Blackberries are the gateway to foraging. Very few of us will not have a childhood memory of reaching for those shiny black fruits, plucking them, and then puckering our mouths at the sourness of a slightly underripe berry, or experiencing the delicious joy of hitting the jackpot and finding the perfectly ripe one.
They are one of the earliest ways many of us make the connection between the wild landscape, the seasons, and our stomachs.
Where to find blackberries
You can find blackberries, or brambles, just about everywhere. Brambles thrive in the UK.
If I stopped tending my garden, within a couple of years it would be a solid blackberry thicket – I know this because when I moved in, the end of the garden was impenetrable with them, and as soon as I slack off for even a few weeks I see the bramble tide creeping back in. This means they are easy to find: in parks, on wasteland, around the edges of fields and allotments, and down suburban lanes. Blackberries are everywhere.
Ideally you do want to find yours on a bush that is a little bit out of the way, as demonstrated by my local thicket. Look for blackberries that are not too frequently picked, so that the hordes of foragers that scour the hedgerows at this time of year have allowed the fruits to fully ripen, and perhaps take a little footstool with you to stretch to the higher reaches. Blackberries are extremely sour when they are unripe, and then mellow to a gorgeous, complex, woodsy and wild sweetness when fully ripe. It can be hard to be certain about this ripeness before picking.
When to pick blackberries
Generally, you are looking for fruits that are almost black in colour and that have an extra gloss to them, that look fat and close to bursting and not even slightly tight.
When you pick one, look inside at its hollow core. If it is stained deep purple then the berry is ripe. Pop it straight into your mouth – there are few better flavours. Gather up more and keep these perfect ones for eating raw, for sprinkling over breakfast yoghurt and oats, or mashing slightly and tipping over ice cream.
If the inside is white, then the fruit is slightly underripe. All is not lost here, however, and you might want to carry a separate container to keep these berries apart from the riper ones. Because these slightly underripe berries are perfect for cooking, and their flavours can be fully brought out with the aid of a little heat and a sprinkling of sugar. These are the berries to turn into jam, of course, but also to cook up into a deep purple mush to pour over ice cream or to top a late summer pavlova. Just stew them gently with a splash of water and a spoonful or two of sugar until they soften and release their juices.
How to use them in the kitchen
Blackberries take beautifully to baking, and are delicious stirred into the batter for a summery cake, flavoured with vanilla, lemon zest and a little rosewater, the blackberries providing occasional bursts of colour and juice. They are also, of course, one of the ingredients in the best possible crumble – apple and blackberry. Apples and blackberries make a wonderful flavour combination, the deep purple intense fruitiness of the blackberries bringing the milder, softer flavour of the apples to life, the juice of the berries staining the apples a deep pink. Cook them together in a saucepan first a little to make sure you get the blackberry juices running and bring about that beautiful colour transformation, then pour into a dish and top with crumble mix before baking. We think they're perfect in these blackberry and custard brioche buns, too.
The mention of crumble may well seem like an invitation to think ahead to autumn, and many people consider blackberries a herald of the end of summer, but although they mark the beginning of the harvest season they are very much a high summer crop, often starting to ripen by the end of July, reaching their peak in August, and beginning to decline by September. There is a handy cut-off date too, provided by legend. The story goes that when the Archangel Michael threw Satan out of heaven on Michaelmas, 29thSeptember, he landed in a patch of brambles and spat on them, and so we are not to pick and eat blackberries after Michaelmas. All the more reason to start on them as soon as you spot them.
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