Blackberries

Gloomy June mornings find me dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, edging into our fruit cage to pick blackberries. There is nothing like fresh berries on our morning fruit.

These berry bushes were given to me by a friend who calls them black raspberries. I don't know if they're olallieberries or boysenberries or blackberries -- but I do know they are delicious. And prickly.

They fruit on second-year canes (as do all blackberries), so while I'm picking berries off the canes tied up to the trellis, new canes are surging around my feet (hence the jeans). When this year's berries are finished, I will cut back the canes that fruited and tie the new canes up to the trellis.

It's a labor of love and prickles, made even more challenging by the netting we have to set up so the mockingbirds, orioles, bulbuls and squirrels don't get my precious berries. (They feast on the loquats hanging overhead instead.)

I first remember picking blackberries at the bottom of our garden in a London suburb (this was before we moved to Canada when I was five). The key was to tug gently on a berry - if it didn't come away it wasn't ripe yet. We fingered and tugged and ate, juice staining our fingers. I'm not sure if any berries ever made it to the kitchen.

When I visited my brother in Vancouver years ago, he fed me a crumble made from wild blackberries he picked along the local railway tracks. Denis Cotter writes of picking blackberries on rambles through the Cork countryside, although he bemoans the excess development that is taking away the country lanes.

This is the first year our bushes have produced an abundance of berries, enough that I can consider baking with them. I sat this morning browsing my English cookbooks with a bowl of blackberries by my side -- crumbles, pies, tarts -- and then I noticed there were no berries left in the bowl. They are so delicious raw, why bother baking with them at all?

So I made vanilla ice cream and sprinkled some berries over the top. I'm considering making a blackberry ripple ice cream - pressing some berries through a sieve and layering them with the ice cream in a pan. But I'm not sure the berries will make it into the sieve.

This is the recipe I use for vanilla ice cream. It came with the Donvier hand-cranked ice cream maker my mother gave me years ago. My Snoopy ice cream maker only holds a pint, which is more than enough for two people. You can double the recipe if your ice cream maker holds a quart.

Remember that dairy products should be organic to minimize exposure to hormones. I use organic vanilla essence from Watkins.

Ice cream is a wonderful summer treat, not a daily indulgence. So when you're going to eat it, make sure it is the best. And make it into almost health food by sprinkling fresh berries on top.

Vanilla Ice Cream
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla

Beat eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until thick and cream-colored. Stir in milk, cream and vanilla until well-mixed. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Makes 1 pint