Ray Collier Country Diary- Snowberries
Snowberries - 8th December 2008
There have been reports from around Inverness and other parts of the Highlands of a shortage of wild berries and fruits this Autumn. Whilst this will mean shortages for wildlife such as the Scandinavian thrushes it will also affect people. The Autumn ritual of collecting berries and fruits for making wine, jams, syrups and soups just did not take place in some areas. In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in what is popularly called "food for free" and the numbers of books on the subject is a testimony of this pastime. This year, in many parts, people were out but either found a complete lack of berries and fruits or in such small quantities they were not worth collecting.
Blackthorn is a popular source of small blue-black plums called sloes and they are used for making a superb jelly and the traditional liqueur, sloe gin. A less known fact is that the juice of ripe sloes can be used as an indelible marking ink. A well known source of sloes is a line of bushes along a field on the southern edge of Inverness. The normal plan is to assess the crop in late summer but a walk along the two hundred yard long stretch this Autumn revealed just six berries. There were many disappointed people after the first frosts when you are supposed to collect the sloes. In the same area are some old and very large beech trees but very few people bother to collect the mast as the fruits are called. For some reason very few books mention food from the beech although it is in Richard Mabey’s book "Food for Free" the latest edition published in 2001 by HarperCollins. The brown three sided nuts of the beech can be used for cooking oil and for beechnut butter. This Autumn these very impressive beech trees were a rich golden brown as the leaves shone in the sunlight. Not a single beech fruit was found although one explanation could be that good crops only occur every three or four years.
The rowan trees seem to vary considerably although in some areas there were very few berries compared with the last few years. Rowan berries are used to make the famous rowan jelly recommended to be served up with venison. The fresh juice can also be added to gin imparting a flavour like Angostura bitters. Those berries that were there attracted the chaffinches and family parties of mistle thrushes and most trees were soon stripped. This means that the Scandinavian thrushes simply moved through and any fieldfares and redwings still to come will also move south or west until they find some berries.
A look in various parts of the countryside gave a mixed picture for many other berries and fruits. Some areas had a reasonable crop but others were so devoid of them that there is cause for concern. Interestingly in one area the white form of berries of the raspberry seemed to be doing well whilst the normal red form was very scarce. Brambles also seemed very patchy and there were few people out picking them although the poor weather could have been another reason. One exception seemed to be the introduced snowberry that had a rich crop of the conspicuous white berries. These berries are up to 15 mm in diameter and the photograph was taken on the roadside on the Black Isle. Ironically we cannot put this surplus of fruit to any use as it is poisonous. Perhaps all these berries and fruits are cyclic and will be back to normal next year.
There have been reports from around Inverness and other parts of the Highlands of a shortage of wild berries and fruits this Autumn. Whilst this will mean shortages for wildlife such as the Scandinavian thrushes it will also affect people. The Autumn ritual of collecting berries and fruits for making wine, jams, syrups and soups just did not take place in some areas. In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in what is popularly called "food for free" and the numbers of books on the subject is a testimony of this pastime. This year, in many parts, people were out but either found a complete lack of berries and fruits or in such small quantities they were not worth collecting.
Blackthorn is a popular source of small blue-black plums called sloes and they are used for making a superb jelly and the traditional liqueur, sloe gin. A less known fact is that the juice of ripe sloes can be used as an indelible marking ink. A well known source of sloes is a line of bushes along a field on the southern edge of Inverness. The normal plan is to assess the crop in late summer but a walk along the two hundred yard long stretch this Autumn revealed just six berries. There were many disappointed people after the first frosts when you are supposed to collect the sloes. In the same area are some old and very large beech trees but very few people bother to collect the mast as the fruits are called. For some reason very few books mention food from the beech although it is in Richard Mabey’s book "Food for Free" the latest edition published in 2001 by HarperCollins. The brown three sided nuts of the beech can be used for cooking oil and for beechnut butter. This Autumn these very impressive beech trees were a rich golden brown as the leaves shone in the sunlight. Not a single beech fruit was found although one explanation could be that good crops only occur every three or four years.
The rowan trees seem to vary considerably although in some areas there were very few berries compared with the last few years. Rowan berries are used to make the famous rowan jelly recommended to be served up with venison. The fresh juice can also be added to gin imparting a flavour like Angostura bitters. Those berries that were there attracted the chaffinches and family parties of mistle thrushes and most trees were soon stripped. This means that the Scandinavian thrushes simply moved through and any fieldfares and redwings still to come will also move south or west until they find some berries.
A look in various parts of the countryside gave a mixed picture for many other berries and fruits. Some areas had a reasonable crop but others were so devoid of them that there is cause for concern. Interestingly in one area the white form of berries of the raspberry seemed to be doing well whilst the normal red form was very scarce. Brambles also seemed very patchy and there were few people out picking them although the poor weather could have been another reason. One exception seemed to be the introduced snowberry that had a rich crop of the conspicuous white berries. These berries are up to 15 mm in diameter and the photograph was taken on the roadside on the Black Isle. Ironically we cannot put this surplus of fruit to any use as it is poisonous. Perhaps all these berries and fruits are cyclic and will be back to normal next year.
posted by Corinne @ 12:03 PM
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