It’s that time again, our yearly outing to pick blackberries, and as it’s been a while, we thought we would share the experience with you.
Each year we have certain traditions and rituals, one of which happened this week. In the middle to end of July each year, we get the bus to Walthamstow, armed with buckets and pails to fill them to the brim with Blackberries. We ‘wild-forage’ from the countless bushes on the Marshes, for free.
The reason, you may ask, well, we make a selection of different blackberry treats. With the collection, we can make Jam/Jelly which we have shared with you in the past, but we also make Cordial and Wine, Sorbet and Ice Cream.
We usually take the dogs and head to Walthamstow Marshes in search of the spiky, viscous bushes that line the sides of the footpaths through the open land.
With a tub in one hand, we climb into the bushes searching for clumps of the berries, then slowly and steadily pull the ripe fruit free, trying and failing to avoid the spikes.
Blackberries are fickle, there are forever ‘not ripe’ and then can ripen and go over in a matter of hours, so timing is everything. Once the berries start to grow, they are a pale red and slowly turn darker red and then to a shiny black. When they go too far that get a matte lustre, and picking them just results in bloody hands, so that by the end of the day it does look like you have murdered someone in the bushes! But in finding the perfect firmness and dropping them into old ice cream tubs, we slowly fill our vestibules, aiming for – well, as much as we can.
It can take most of the day to get enough to allow us to make our year’s supply of the goodies, and so, this year with the heat of the wonderful all-day sunshine, we didn’t take the pooches with us (as it was too hot for them). Instead, the pair of us set out in search of the little black berries and five hours later, with our buckets full and still needing to carry them home, we called it quits and, of course, headed to the pub for a much-needed pint and a burger.
We took our leave in The Princess of Wales alongside the Lea Valley Navigation/Regent’s Canal and took a well-earned rest before heading home to count our wares and weigh out the berries, and plan what to make from them.
So we thought we would share a couple more of the recipes which we will be using. Below are the instructions for Cordial and Blackberry Fool.
Blackberry Cordial
Blackberry Fool
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