I'm a rambler, I'm a brambler

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In Scotland we do call them brambles though that is not the universal name down south. I can’t catch the ‘blackberry’ habit myself- you can take the girl out of Scotland but you can’t take bramble out of the girl.  There is no doubt about it in my view that foraging first and foremost means brambling, north and south of the border.

 

Legend has it when Lucifer was banished from heaven, he tumbled down onto a bramble bush. When he fell into the brambly prickly plant, he scorched the fruit with his fiery breath. He cursed the brambles and spat on them, making them bitter and unsuitable to eat. He renews his curse every year, so if they aren’t picked by the feast of Michaelmas (September 29), they become unfit to eat.  Well in Scotland by the end of September those brambles are indeed often cursed by bad weather, so we would have been gathering those fruits for 6 weeks or more before then.  In my experience we are rarely disappointed by the harvest - brambles are the gift that keeps giving around here in East Lothian, around the Wirral lanes, on the banks of the railway line in Liverpool. 

In the old days we picked brambles on Tuesdays and Fridays - on Tuesdays the fruits had ripened since the locals had been out en masse picking on the weekend and on Fridays they had recovered from the picking on Wednesday, early closing day for the shops.  It is certainly true these days, when the shops are always open and people work all hours, that there are far fewer bramblers than there used to be. A sunny day is best and in full balmy autumnal sunlight the fruits are sweeter so avoid the rainy or dull days. If there are two of you then a big 1 litre yoghurt pot each (with a lid and a handle) will give you a very good haul.  Plenty for freezing, bramble and apple jelly, fruity vinegar.  Or try some Creme de Mure (perfect French style in a glass of fizzy wine). My grandson Frank goes for my bramble ice cream - bramble puree mixed in with whipped condensed milk and double cream ( or half and half double cream and natural yoghurt for a healthier version).

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Finally the last word on the subject, here is proof, if you need it, that brambling is the monarch of the forage, a cultural and lyrical pastime.

 

Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney:

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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.

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