The Berry Best Summer Food

To me, there is only one flavor that says “summertime”. I will admit, it’s not that common unless you’re from the Pacific Northwest. While I certainly love hot dogs, corn on the cob, or s’mores cooked over a campfire… none of those will ever evoke the same nostalgia and simple joy I get from eating the humble blackberry.

Though the viny bushes they grow on are covered in vicious thorns, and I have torn many shirts reaching for the delectable treat, the berries have always been worth the effort. Blackberries, if you don’t already know, grow absolutely everywhere they can west of the Cascade Mountains. I really do mean everywhere. They will happily grow in the median between the opposing lanes of traffic on the freeway, or even in your front yard if you’re not vigilant. While I was growing up, my family considered the bushes to be a convenient weed.

Blackberry pies and jams are wonderful, and syrups simply sublime. But I will always love the simple beauty of the berry itself. Even the tiny seeds that get stuck between your teeth are a treasured aspect of this delight; though, I could do without the miniscule, hair-like bits that stick out between the fruiting clusters.

Perhaps I love them so much because they remind me of the freedom that summer brought in company with the sweet fruit. Perhaps it’s the memories of filling five-gallon buckets with my family, and the way everything seemed to be near-perfect when we did. But picking blackberries is, and shall remain, a cherished tradition for those who live in the lands conquered by the ever-encroaching vine.

Nothing could be better, in my opinion, than stumbling across a bush you never expected as you went for a walk. To just casually stroll through the woods and find an untouched berry bush bursting with fruit ripe and ready for the picking seemed like a gift from Mother Nature herself.

Though it has now been many years since I have had the simple delight of picking fresh berries off the vine, I know that I can still tell a good, juicy, ripe berry apart from one left on the vine too long with nothing more than a casual touch. If they’re squishy, or stain your fingers, move on, and find another candidate. What you want, if you’re after that mythical ‘perfect berry’, is a fruit dark and rich in color that might literally fall off the vine and into your hand with only the gentlest touch. When they’re ready to go, they are ready to go. A good berry should have only the slightest bit of give when softly squeezed. Imagine that, when squeezing, you are giving the berry a hug; do not squeeze hard enough to hurt the poor thing. Of course, the underripe fruit are easily distinguished from their ready-to-eat brethren by their distinctive lack of purple. They will still be turning that deep, rich shade of violet when they’re ready to eat, and they get notably sourer the sooner they’re plucked, but a perfectly ripe berry is a reward all its own. To pick a perfect berry is the equivalent of finding a $5 bill on the ground with no one around. It can make you feel like the universe itself decided to send you a little pick-me-up.

Of course, my family could never eat all the berries we picked in a reasonable amount of time. With each of us three kids filling our own buckets, and the parents themselves similarly busy, we had more of the fruit than anyone could reasonably justify. Even with us eating more than we picked, the buckets still came home filled as high as they could without spilling everywhere.

We ate berries with everything. Put some straight on your ice cream, and you had an instant upgrade to your dessert. Add them to a bowl of cereal or oatmeal for that extra burst of flavor. Snack on them in place of junk food… anything goes.

To say that I love blackberries is like calling the sky big. You wouldn’t be wrong, by any means or measurement, but you would still be far off from an accurate representation of the facts. My affection for them seems to be encoded to my very soul, and the taste alone is enough to bring a wholesome touch to even the darkest of days.

I suppose that I hope, in some deep place in my heart, that eating the berries could take me back to those carefree days long before I ever needed to worry about paying taxes, staying on top of the rent, or how I could afford fresh fruit in my diet. When it was berry-picking time, there was no fighting or bickering. There was only laughter, fruit, and fun.

Whenever I buy a package of blackberries from the store today, I sigh to myself when I see they are a different variety from those I grew up with. The store-bought berries are longer, less plump, and have a notably bitter taste mixed in with the sweet tartness. Still, it’s close enough to bring that nostalgia up and send me back to the memories of a simpler time.

To me, blackberries will always taste like summer.