Blackberries: Destructive and Delicious

Bobbi Lee Hitchon has been volunteering at an organic vineyard and farm in Victoria, Australia. This week, she dispatches a story about her experience with wild blackberries.

To read her full articles, plus stories of her travels and experience with WWOOF, a cultural work exchange program, please visit Heels and Wheels Online.

As with a lot of things in Australia, I learned the full story on blackberries in the country in Bill Bryson’s book “In a Sunburned Country.” In the book, he explains how blackberries were introduced to Australia and what a pest the fruit has been since then. The weed grows very fast, taking over acres and acres of land if not contained.

While Bryson gives a quick overview of how blackberries came to Australia and what a big problem it is, he neglects to explain how painful the problem can be. Little did I know, I would soon find out.

At Kancoona alone there are a 50 acres of blackberries.

The blackberry vines tangle themselves around already tangled grapevines, but farmers can’t just rip the vines apart, because they need to be careful of the grapes. I followed one vine at least six meters along a line of cabernet sauvignon.

The worst part is the thorns. The thorns on blackberry vines are like nothing I have ever seen or felt. Imagine a cat’s claws clinging to you out of fear and multiply that by a million. The thorns hook into a person’s clothing making it hard to just pull out without somewhat ripping the fabric and if it gets into a person’s skin it’s either staying in or taking a piece of that person out.

Lise is a French friend I made while working on the vineyard. She absolutely loves blackberries and walks down to the blackberry bushes almost every day, collecting only a handful of the plump berries each time.

The vineyard has a restaurant, so we talked a lot about different recipes and dishes from our various cultures. One day, Lise told me that she was going to make blackberry jelly using her mom’s traditional recipe from France.

She started early on a Saturday morning , recruiting Maedy, the vineyard owners’ nine-year-old daughter, to help her collect two kilograms of blackberries necessary to make the jelly.

They were in the bush collecting berries for hours. It’s tough work.

Watching the process was fantastic. We had to first boil the berries and then filter out the skins and seeds to get the all juices out. The metal kitchen glistened with purple while Lise was in the middle of it, draining cooked blackberries through a pair of juice-stained pantyhose.

The recipe can be a lot of work, but itʼs very authentic and the outcome is delicious. It just put into perspective why French food is so delicious – every step is so precise and full of care.

After hours in the bush, a few hours in the kitchen and a body full of thorns and scratches, the outcome was three large jars of blackberry jelly and a large glass of extra juice.

That day, we had blackberry everything.

Everyone was gobbling down blackberries throughout the day. Then Lise and I drank blackberry smoothies. Then I remembered this blueberry, brandy ice cream I eat at the Balloon Festival in Hamilton, NJ every year and suggested we pour the blackberry juice over vanilla ice cream.

The next morning I woke up and had toast with blackberry jelly while I picked the thorns out of my fingers.

Click here to try the recipe for blackberry jelly.