Mulberries

The road where I grew up was once a strip of overgrown dandelions, daisies, sweet grass and other assortment of summer weeds sprouting between two muddy ruts. Rabbits grew fat on the foliage and only took cover when Dad drove the Chevy up the hill from Grey’s. Other than the milk man and the occasional delivery from the Cook Coffee Man, there wasn’t much traffic, so the road was an excellent place to learn to ride a bike, play in muddle puddles or go sledding after a good ice storm, because it would take the county a week before they got around to sanding the road. Not even the school bus nor the mailman came up the road. As a kid, if I heard a car coming up the hill I ran out to the road to see who it might be. That was country life excitement. While I don’t go running anymore, the habit of looking out the window to see who might be coming is as ingrained as a reflex. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have any idea who is passing by.

Today, traffic is heavier and neighbors are as plentiful as the mulberries on the school house tree. Even so I didn’t expect to inconvenience many when I set a ladder up in the middle of the now paved road to pick the mulberries. The dark berries littered the road, staining the underside of any car that drives through them. Less than two minutes after I climbed to the top of the wooden ladder a pickup truck came cruising by. I had nearly a quart when the UPS truck came to deliver a package. Both vehicles slowed down, and gave wide berth to the women dressed in painter’s pants with her head buried in the upper branches.

I thought about gathering the ones that had fallen on the road, but discovered road gravel made them a bit gritty. It was impossible not to step on them. Envision that I Love Lucy classic. By the time I filled my bucket the rungs were awash with swished berries, my pants were splattered with dark stains and my fingernails looked like I had been working on an old car engine for eight hours.

In my search for mulberry recipes, had read that the stems tasted awful, and the raw fruit and leaves a mildly hallucinogenic. In truth, the only thing you’d end up hallucinating is that you’re dying of a bad belly ache. Taking great care, I removed the stems without totally mutilating the fruit. Took nearly an hour of tedious snipping the stems with a fingernail cutter while sitting on the back porch swatting horse flies. It was a pain in the butt, but much of that had to do with the concrete steps. I doubted if the results was going to be worth all the trouble. With a short shelf life, it’s not hard to understand why these berries are not commercially grown.

After all the hassle of harvesting and de-stemming the berries, I wanted a simple cobbler recipe. The dessert came out perfectly. Unlike raspberries the mulberry seed cooks up soft and isn’t such a nuisance to eat. However, I forgot to rinse the darn little things and occasionally the cobbler had the same grittiness as a New England clam. Obviously the ones I did pick up out of the road I didn't throw away.

Made me think I’ll go out and get some more for the freezer.