On a cold and frosty morning

[venta]

Today's burning question: does anyone actually like dried mulberries?

My box o' nibbles from Graze[*] arrived today. One of the things it contained was a snack called "round the mulberry bush" (they name all their snacks, I don't know why) which contained raisins and dried white mulberries.

Dried mulberries look like dessicated clumps of insect eggs. When eaten, they have a nasty dry texture to the outside and a disturbingly (especially given their appearance) squodgy texture on the inside. They appear to taste like raisins - presumably due to proximity - so I'm assuming they don't have a whole lot of taste themselves.



See? Scary, aren't they?

I'm not sure I want to finish the box off, but I'm fearing that they might hatch if I don't. But if I do, they might hatch in me....

Even the other pictures of mulberries on Wikipedia all look vaguely frightening.

Will anyone speak out for the mulberry?

[*] In defence of Graze, the things they usually send me are very nice. I have loads of get-a-free-box codes if anyone wants to try them out.

Comments

[lnr]

We stayed at a Landmark Trust place for my mum's 50th which had a mulberry tree in the garden. And can confirm that ripe red ones a) are lovely dropped in the bottom of a glass of bubbly and b) can be turned into an excellent fruit coulis for pouring on vanilla icecream.

Terribly messy to pick though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Are you sure it wasn't just that bubbly was nice, and there happened to be a pretty red thing in the bottom :)

However, I'll cautiously accept the idea that they aren't all pointless!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, this, fresh red and black mulberries are the niceness, a bit like a richer version of a ripe raspberry. Never tried (or even seen) a white one though. To quote TFOAK, "The fruit of the white mulberry... has a different flavor, sometimes characterized as insipid." Yum.

Mulberry trees are pretty striking too. All the ones I've seen (which admittedly is only 3) were centuries old. I don't know if there haven't been any planted in the UK in recent eons, or what.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall that Gardener's Question Time, on being asked about mulberries, proffered the opinion that the white ones were a bit pointless other than for silk.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Silk. Say no more.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. But who had the idea that anyone other than the little wiggly workers wanted to eat the damn things?

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Radio 4 did an episode bemoaning the disappearance of classic english berries which are being displaced in the shops by over-hyped and over-flown monsters such as blueberries.*
The mulberry was mentioned, and apparently it's a pain to cultivate as the trees take a lifetime to grow big enough to bear fruit, so no one ever bothers to plant them.

I'd love to try them though, never been given the opportunity.


* There was much talk along the lines of "Why oh why oh why do people buy blueberries? Why are they so popular compared to redcurrants and blackcurrants? It's all marketing!" Fuck I dunno, could it be because they're utterly delicious and not bitter and full of tooth-jamming seeds like redcurrants and their ilk?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you'd use blueberries as an example - they bewilder me because they taste of absolutely nothing except faint bitterness. I occasionally encounter them and have always been baffled why anyone would pay money for them.

I'd like to try red mulberries as described by lnr above, but definitely don't recommend dried white ones.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

I love properly ripe blueberries! I could happily eat a bowlful of them with nothing else added. They're sweet and have a good texture.
But then, I don't like sugary foods so my definition of tasty sweet is more subtle than the "dump a ton of sugar on it" majority.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mulberries are also impossible to sell in shops, because when ripe they immediately crush and leave extremely staining juice all over everywhere.

A blueberry is just an American version of a bilberry though -- bigger, too sweet, lacking in flavour. And bilberries are dead easy to grow if you have the right sort of moorland (eg. most of Scotland).

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

I'd happily eat bilberries too given the chance, but I've never seen them for sale or ever been offered any to taste.

Redcurrants and blackcurrants I grew up with, we grew them in the garden and it was my job to pick them every year. They're just no fun fresh and have to be cooked into pies or made into jams, and even then they're stupidly fiddly and over seedy. I prefer to eat my berries fresh but they're no good for that. (Though I'm told there are special fresh eating varieties out there.)

Proper (sweet eating) gooseberries I do miss though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes :( Not that long ago it even seemed to be quite hard to buy rhubarb, but there seems to be lots more of that about now.

There are several fruits that I'd love to buy (admittedly to cook with, rather than eat fresh) but as far as I can tell the only way to get them is to know someone who has a tree. Things like damsons, or crabapples - never in shops at all.

Later this year I'm hoping to make bramble, elderberry and apple ham as there seem to be so many elder trees and bramble bushes growing on wasteland near where I've moved to.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

The brambles are doing really well this year. I'm hoping to find time to go out picking soon.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ours have come in quite early -- have had to pick a load already. (I say "ours", I mean the ones at the back of T's allotment.)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, I had that depressing currant experience as a child too, it put me off them for quite a while. But fortunately a couple of years ago we got given a lovely blackcurrant bush for the garden here that can just be eaten fresh.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

You sound like you might know... why can't we get damsons commercially? The only time I ever find the fruit, as opposed to the jam (which is also ridiculously hard to find, usually only represented by one brand), is when I go to the village I grew up in and buy it from the WI or school fete or similar. Because there are damson trees in a couple of gardens there. I don't even know anyone with damson trees, and I know a surprising number of people with fruit trees.

(I have looked into buying one but time has always been against me when I had the money, and vice versa. They're quite a bit more expensive than apple trees.)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

It's largely because damsons don't fruit very reliably, so there aren't many commercial growers. Plus they're quite sharp and popular tastes, particularly in recent years, have been towards sweeter fruits and vegetables (think 'sugarsnap' peas and 'supersweet' baby sweetcorn).

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Damsons are a closed book to me, I'm afraid (Damsons in Distress, by Prunus Drupe), but what valkyriekaren says above sounds very plausible.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

The new flapjacks and Korean snack are l33t though...

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I've eaten other colours of mulberries and liked them (over in Sweden I think). Never seen a white one before though.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

There's a huge ancient mulberry outside my office, and its fruit (reddy-black when ripe) are totally delicious. And also the most spectacularly stainy fruit ever too. If you think dealing with blackcurrants is messy, you have no idea. I imagine they don't keep well, and the dried ones do look a bit perturbing.

But I'm not going to proselytise - I already have to fight to get any (word gets round).

[cuthbertcross.livejournal.com]

We've got a mulberry tree!! Though this year (its fourth ) was the first time
It fruited, and we had..... Three mulberries!! Woo hoo!

We had to share them to get a taste... Which was pretty much the taste of redcurrants. Tart but yummy.

Next year, oh luxury , we may get SIX....

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

I've had that graze box and it was the first time i'd tried them. They do have a curious texture to the tongue, kind of papery. They are a little odd, but i really quite like them !