Blackberries go with ... apples of course, not redcurrants

It’s an autumnal pairing that brings with it memories of country lanes and orchards, of bramble scratches and shinning up fruit trees. It is old china bowls of warm crumble and deep slices of purple pie. I have yet to meet two ingredients that sit so perfectly together." Nigel Slater

Really this is not at all what I was going to write about.

This was.

It was going to be one of my Inspirations from art posts. The very lovely photograph at left is another one of those that I came across yesterday. It's so English. But then I remembered that I had done redcurrants. Well I did redcurrant jelly because I actually made some last year, but I did talk about redcurrants in general in the process. But look there are blackberries in this picture too so I decided to do them instead.

To begin - a very quick aside - there are not very many recipes out there that combine redcurrants and blackberries - well none actually that I could see. But I guess they look good together which is why they feature in this picture.

So then on to what do blackberries go with - well obviously apples. Partly because they ripen at the same time.

"When you pick blackberries in the autumn, and gather windfall apples to make this pie, quantity and variety of fruit do not much come into it. You make the best of what you have. This is the way it should be. This is how regional dishes once developed. People used what their garden and neighbourhood could provide." Jane Grigson

And the apples that ripened at the same time were tart crab apples. So maybe redcurrants and blackberries are not around at the same time, and so no dishes that used them both were devised. Still I reckon you could make all sorts of pies, tarts, cakes, trifles, compotes, jams, ice-creams, etc. with them.

We, like many wartime English children used to go blackberrying every year. We used to love it, in spite of the thorns.

"Happy afternoons of late summer and early autumn, scrabbling about among the brambles to secure a glossy bounty of blackberries while vicious thorns scratched our purple-stained fingers, are, for many of us, our first experiences of food for free. Somehow, battling the prickles made the fruit all the more precious as we triumphantly brought it home for tea." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Sometimes we ventured out into the countryside, so that it was an afternoon's excursion too, but sometimes we just went down into 'the dell' next to the local church - a sort of crater in the land next to a footpath to the church which was full of blackberry bushes. And yes, we would bring them home and mum would make them into apple and blackberry pies or crumbles.

Somewhere as I was reading about all of this, I saw a reference to a pie plate, which took me back. I'm not sure they exist in quite the same way now. They were shallow plates - I think we had a pyrex one, but it might have been an enamel one - something like the ones below:

pie plate

pyrex pie plate

I know they're very ordinary and that you can still get pie plates, but I have the impression that modern ones are deeper.

Later in my life, when we lived in Adelaide on our hillside facing down the Adelaide Hills and out to sea, we would sometimes go and gather blackberries from the acres and acres that clung to the slopes below us. This was, of course, rather more hazardous than in England because of the danger of snakes. And blackberries, of course, are not regarded in quite the same folksy way here in Australia. Because, as in Adelaide, they just take over the countryside. They are a noxious weed and therefore often get sprayed with very poisonous weed killer, so it's really not safe to pick any you see. We were told that what you really needed was goats. You got a really big rubber tyre, chained the goat to it and then threw the tyre into the middle of a patch of blackberries. The goats would eat their way into the centre, thus ridding you of the blackberries. Because they loved them, thorns and all.

In England they seem to stay in the hedgerows, rather than taking over, or maybe it's just that the farmers make sure they do not encroach on their fields.

"Soon, as every barbed stem reaches out and roots where it touches down, an irresistible wave as thick as blackberry jam will cover this field and only after hawthorns push through, and then ash trees grow to close their canopy above and shade out the bramble, will a ground flora take hold; by then it will be woodland, not grassland. Bramble is the agent for this transition from one world to another, a metamorphosis that undoes what we have created, feeds us sweetness, then replaces us." Paul Evans - The Guardian

Various food writers also commented on the fact that people would pay vast sums for blackberries in the supermarket when the car park was surrounded by blackberry bushes with berries to be had by anyone. And they all claimed that the wild ones taste better too.

So what can you do with them other than make a luscious blackberry and apple pie à la Delia? Well lots and lots of things. Crumbles, and Cobblers, jam and jelly, are the obvious things. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has a rather luscious sounding Blackberry yoghurt soufflé cake which is one of those cakes you make with just a little bit of flour and lots of separated eggs.

Yotam Ottolenghi goes for pickled blackberries, which he then uses in a sauce for duck, and indeed quite a few people go for the blackberry and rich meat kind of combination - pork, duck, venison, etc. Kangaroo too I guess. Sometimes they add apples to the mix, and Nigel Slater even makes a sort of dip to go with leftover pork crackling. His blackberries are pickled too.

But Felicity Cloake goes for booze.

"However, as the nights draw in, I’ll be taking to drink. A tart blackberry syrup is a fine thing – mash equal parts fruit, sugar and cider vinegar and leave for a week or so before straining and topping up with sparkling water – and to my mind, blackberry gin is even better, whether as a Christmas present for others or yourself. Put 250g well-washed fruit and 250g sugar in a large sterilised jar and top up with 1 litre of gin or vodka. Put in a dark place for two months, shaking occasionally to dissolve the sugar, and then strain into clean bottles to serve: perfect in a glass of festive fizz." Felicity Cloake

I have to say that first drink sounds a bit tempting. Well the second one does too. And indeed when I had all those blackberries in Adelaide, I made a blackberry liqueur with brandy I think. It sounds like I should have used vodka or gin. I very possibly still have some tucked away somewhere.

They are fragile things blackberries, which is interesting when you consider how tough the plant is. They don't last long. When you get them back home you cook them (or eat them) straight away, although you can freeze them - spread out on trays and then packed into bags when frozen. My freezer would not have room for this. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall suggests that you have a plan for what you are going to do with them before you go picking. Jam seems to be the best option if you have lots and lots - remember to pick some red ones too, just to add a little pectin and tartness. Though because of the tiny pips in the berries, they do say that jelly is a better option. Then you can keep the jars, gradually eating your way through them until it's time to do some more. Like I'm doing with my wild plums right now.

"In one family I know, February is a sort of carnival month: the precious store cupboard, with all its jars that have been carefully guarded, can be raided without thought of tomorrow. That way the shelves are clear for the new season." Jane Grigson

Up in the 'old' part of our garden - not bush, just an old garden gone wild, we have blackberries. And they are spreading a bit, although not hugely. And they do have a few berries, but not that many. Well the birds get to them too. I'll try and keep a better eye on them this year. Last year I think I managed to find about four blackberries. Such is the fertility of our garden that even the blackberries don't flourish!