Wild fruits once formed an important part of our diet. Way back in the Neolithic Age, about 11,000 years ago, our ancestors picked blackberries. We still pick them. Some things never change! The people in this country must have some affection for the blackberry, because it is the only fruit that has become a part of the English language. People go out to pick apples or cherries, but never go 'appling' or 'cherrying'. Yet they are quite happy to go 'blackberrying'. And picking wild fruits has several advantages - you get a rest from pruning, a good walk, a lot of fun, a taste of history, and free food.
If a plant has been used by man for a long time it acquires many names. Hawthorn is no exception. It is known by at least thirty names across the country, including cuckoo's beads, chucky cheese, ladies meat hazle and pixie pears. You can eat the berries raw, but they don't taste very nice - unless you have a passion for raw potatoes. They can be cooked with crab-apples to make a jelly which is supposed to be nice with cheese. A cure for sciatica, called the Duke of Monmouth's recipe, was once made from ripe haw berries and fennel roots mixed with syrup of elderberries. Whether this was taken internally or applied externally I don't know, but I wouldn't fancy swallowing it.
The fruit of the dog-rose, the rose-hip, is famous for its high Vitamin C content and the syrup that can be made from them. Rose-hip syrup has been said to cure a lot of ailments, from coughs and colds to diarrhoea and dysentery. During the war, by which I mean the Second World War, rose-hip syrup production became a commercial concern. The hips were collected (as much as 340 tons in a year). They were then ground and treated with boiling water to destroy an enzyme which breaks down the Vitamin C in the fruit. The rose-hip juice was then concentrated under reduced pressure to make syrup. It was found that patients with fractures recovered more quickly when they received rose-hip syrup. And it was also discovered that rose-hips collected from Scotland contained more Vitamin C than those from Cornwall, which is rather surprising.
The bilberry is common on acid heath and moorlands. The fruits are sometimes called 'blaeberries', meaning bluish, but are also known by a dozen or so other names like huckleberries, whinberries and brylocks. They are laborious to pick, but people have done it for centuries, for they are quite tasty, raw or cooked! They have their medicinal virtues too, and were once used to treat scurvy, diarrhoea and urinary complaints. Nowadays, homeopathic bilberry tablets are sometimes used by diabetics.
The elder is one of those plants surrounded by superstition. Some gardeners will not cut down an elder tree in case it brings them bad luck. Raw elderberries contain cyanide and are actually poisonous, but on cooking the cyanide breaks down and they can be transformed into drinks, jams, jellies and even dried currants. In the past the elder was used to cure many ailments, from scurvy to toothache, and from rheumatism to more unmentionable diseases. As for non-culinary uses, elderberries were once used as a pH indicator (the juice going green with alkalis and red with acids), and the Romans used it as a hair dye (but who wants bright purple hair these days).
The fruits of the Sorbus were once eaten quite a lot. The best-known sorbus is the rowan, which has large clusters of small orange berries. These berries make good wine and an excellent jelly to accompany game or lamb. And if you had a sore throat you could always gargle with the wine. The fruits of the wild service tree, another member of the sorbus family, can be bletted and eaten like medlars. In medieval England they were known as chequers, and there may be a link between the fermented drink that can be made from the fruits and the pub name Chequers. 'Service' may have come from the Spanish cerevisisa, meaning fermented drink. The fruits of the whitebeam, yet another sorbus, can also be bletted. They were known as 'chess apples' in the north of England in the seventeenth century, and were eaten with wine and honey. All in all, the sorbus has many connections with alcoholic beverages, and maybe that's why you so often see the trees in old pub gardens.
Another boozy berry is that of the juniper, which is well known for its connection with gin, made from the volatile oils extracted from the black ripe fruits. As well as flavouring gin they add a tasty nip to gamey meats, and the oils they contain stimulate the gastric juices as well as acting as a diuretic. Essential oils extracted from the berries are used in the treatment of kidney and digestive complaints. Externally, a decoction of the bruised fruits can be used to speed up the healing of wounds and as a liniment for rheumatism.
The sloe, the fruit of the blackthorn, is one of our native woodland fruits. Raw sloes do very peculiar things to the mouth but are delicious when cooked. They can be used to make a nice dry wine, and they give a superb flavour to gin. The sloe contains alkaloids which stimulate the digestive juices, so sloe gin makes a good after-dinner drink. To make it, prick 8 oz. of sloes and put them into a bottle, add 1 pint of gin, 6 unpeeled almonds and 2 oz. of castor sugar. Swirl each day until the sugar has all dissolved, and decant after 6 months. You can then put the sloes out for the birds. The birds love them, but they sometimes get too sozzled to fly.
So why not go for a stroll in the country and savour the free food you can find there. But keep away from those growing at the side of busy roads. You never know what nasty chemicals they could be contaminated with.
Happy Gardening!
written by Bill Hutchings
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page last updated 27 AUGUST 1998