Date: 12 August 2007 21:10:09
I picked 4lbs of blackberries yesterday. Lovely big, juicy, glossy, sweet blackberries. But am now at a loss as to what to do with them. I am not big on very sweet pies and puds but if you have any truly scrumptious suggestions as to what to do with them, gentle reader, do let me know.
In the meantime, you may be moderately interested to learn (or, given that I have such an erudite readership, be reminded) that bramble, another name for the blackberry bush, means "prickly" [derived from OE broembel/brymbyl].
You will also recall that Judges 9: 8-15 tells the parable of the trees electing a king to rule over them. The King James translation calls the final tree to be asked to rule the “bramble”. The NIV calls it a “thorn bush”. Either way, my arms look as if they have been in a vicious encounter with a Big Cat.
The French language gives the intrepid hunter-gatherer a bit of forewarning by calling the blackberry “mûre de ronce” (ronce = thorns) or “mûre sauvage” (which, admittedly, is more likely to be the meaning of "wild" as in "uncultivated" as opposed to "ferocious"...). Nevertheless, you are unlikely to be lulled into a false sense of security before plunging after the delicious little beauties. The German “Brombeere”, although clearly related to OE broembel, gives limited forewarning of the bush's vicious nature. (I haven't been able to find another thorny German word starting with Brom...in this context.) And its other English names bumble-kite, bramble-kite, bly, brummel and brameberry sound quite gentle, too. With the exception of scaldhead which serves to remind me that whatever I decide to make out of my black/brambleberries, the kitchen is likely to resemble a slaughterhouse once I've finished.