 Summer
is the best time of year for a cook—the time of year when the
bounty of Mother Earth is literally at our fingertips each day.
A new surprise
turns up almost every week in my local farmer's market. In June,
we are blessed with buckets of ruby-red Bing cherries. July delivers
crates of "Blue Lake" green beans. In August, we start husking ears
of sweet corn and September brings voluptuously juicy peaches. And
in late September, the season is crowned with the exalted and elusive
wild huckleberry.
One of the
stars of any summer table is the many varieties of "cane" berries
that grow throughout the season. Most of us don't even realize what
a cane berry is. We see pretty little hillocks of berries standing
at attention in the produce section of the supermarket and don't
consider the history of these beautiful fruits of summer.
All cane berries
are part of the rose family of plants. Like roses, cane berries
have long stems (canes), which are studded with prickly thorns.
The fruits of cane berries have the same sweet fragrance of rose
petals.
Some people
consider any type of cane berry to be a noxious weed that grows
out of control along the sides of a road. This falsehood could be
due in part to the fact that many cane berry bushes border the murky
waters of sloughs - it's not too appetizing to think of a berry
basking in the sun next to a sewer pit. However, cane berries are
not snobbish neighbors. Other than finding a place to soak up the
hottest rays of sun and a cool drink of water, they can adapt and
flourish in almost any surroundings.
Cane berries
also seem to take a bad rap because they are so damn hard to pick.
I remember picking wild blackberries in the foothills of the Cascade
Mountains just east of Mollala, Oregon. We would trudge through
a mucky cow pasture to reach a huge outcropping of blackberries.
Of course, the best berries were laughing at us from their sun-soaked
perch at the top of the bush, nearly 10 feet above our heads. We
were totally unprepared for the torture that awaited, outfitted
in t-shirts and shorts, our bare skin exposed to the sharp thorns
on the canes.
Hours and
untold scrapes and pricks later, we had our bounty: a handful of
blackberries. But dreaming of the warm, juicy pie that would grace
our dinner table that evening made the trauma of the hunt seem unimportant.
In Oregon,
each local berry farmer pays an "assessment" or fee, based on the
acres of each crop he grows. The money collected from the farmer
is paid to the Oregon State Department of Agriculture.
As one of
his duties at the Department of Agriculture, my father was the administrator
of the "Oregon Cane Berry Commission" for many years. In Oregon,
"Commodity Commissions" run the gamut from animals (beef, fryer
and sheep commissions), to fruit and vegetables (strawberry and
onion commissions), to hay and grasses (wheat, alfalfa and ryegrass
commissions). Through these "Commissions" the state promotes and
markets Oregon products around the world.
One of the
most popular varieties of cane berries is the "raspberry." Raspberries
have been known since prehistoric times. The ancients attributed
the origins of raspberries to divine intervention from the Gods--the
nymph Ida scratched her breast while picking a delicate raspberry
for young Zeus and thus raspberries, until that time white, turned
red. The blood of love, so to speak.
Raspberries
have been cultivated since the Middle Ages, yet commercial farming
methods were not perfected until the start of the 20th century.
 The
"Loganberry" was created in 1881, when James Logan of Santa Cruz,
California, inadvertently crossed a red raspberry and a blackberry.
Loganberries possess the red color of the raspberry, albeit a more
ruby red, and are somewhat larger and more elongated in size than
the blackberry. Loganberries have an especially tart yet sweet flavor
that is best suited to baked desserts like pies and tarts.
Rudolph Boysen
of Napa, California developed the boysenberry—a hybrid of the
blackberry, in the early 1920's.
Mr. Boysen
collaborated with Walter Knott and together they produced boysenberries
on the Knott farm in Buena Park, California. As a means of helping
get through the Depression, the Knott's began selling boysenberry
jams and jellies from their farmstand. In later years, the farm
became the amusement park we know today as "Knott's Berry Farm."
The Marion
blackberry, or "marionberry" is a cross between the Chehalem and
Olallieberry and grows exclusively in Marion County which lies within
the rich farmlands of the Willamette Valley in Western Oregon. Although
Walt Whitman tasted berries that would develop into the marionberry,
it was not until 1956 that the first commercially grown marionberries
were to the American table. The aromatic marionberry has an intense
blackberry flavor and is nearly double the size of the blackberry.
 Whereas
other blackberry varieties are sold simply as "blackberries," the
Marionberry is only sold under the Marionberry name. This is "branded"
marketing--selling a high-quality product under its given name.
Another example would be "Certified Angus Beef."
Today, foreign
berries can be found in supermarkets year-round, and at sky-high
prices in January. Nevertheless, it's always best to avoid spending
your money on interlopers from halfway across the globe and wait
until summer when local cane berries are in season and at the peak
of flavor.
So the next
time you are winding down a country road this summer and happen
upon what appears to be a gangly weed, you may want to stop. It
just might be a bushel of sweet, juicy berries-and the best way
to taste the flavor of the season is to pick the tender, little
morsels straight off the cane and savor the moment. Enjoy.
Raspberries
and Palm Fruit in Syrup
with Candied
Ginger Ice Cream
Loganberry-Lemon
Bars
Boysenberry
Kiss
Marionberry
Cobbler
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