| and that is a story that no one can beat |
[Jul. 4th, 2025|07:49 pm] |
Happy Fourth of July. *sigh*
Last weekend, we went berry picking again.
Yeah, I know they look a little bit like gagh click here.
But, no way! They are (see title) mulberries--Pakistan or Himalayan mulberries, supposedly. Also supposedly, they are superior to regular mulberries, which I had heard were "insipid," and which the internet confirms, are insipid.
None of us had ever tasted them, so we sampled a few off the tree. I tasted a ripe one, one that was partially green, and a totally dry one. All delicious. DELICIOUS.
My history with mulberries begins when we moved to this house. I was four and a half (the only sentient child at the time). My parents told me we would have a mulberry tree in front of the house. I was over the moon--I didn't know what a mulberry was, but I knew what a berry was, and it sounded like a dream come true.
Then my mother informed me it would be a "fruitless mulberry." Even my four year old mind thought, "What the hell"? What use is that, for God's sake? This was my introduction to my father's lifelong war on fruit.
Have I told this story before? It bears repeating.
I can safely say I have never stopped being disappointed. Although I'd still never tasted a mulberry, and almost never encountered one, even though I hear it's kind of an Armenian thing, at least in some regions. Mulberries were invented by Armenians!
But honestly, all my relatives in the valley grew all kinds of fruit, and I still never saw or ate a mulberry, that I can remember.
I don't really recall seeing them until I lived in Connecticut, where there were trees that dropped huge amounts of them all over the ground, where they squished, and froze, and fermented into one solid slippery mass.
And then, among all the fruitless mulberries here in town, I finally came across one in front of an old little house over on the main thoroughfare, which... same deal. Solid squishy slippery mass, minus the freezing of course. They NEVER clean it off the sidewalk--very treacherous.
Once I was walking by and I saw a young father and his kid under the tree--the father was knocking the branches to make the berries fall. The kid looked at me apologetically, "My father says they're good..." I was like, "Absolutely!" Someone putting them to use, finally! Although you'd want to wash them pretty well--a lot of exhaust fumes on that street. Which used to be a country road, of course.
Anyway, I guess mulberries are kind of a new, trendy thing out here. The first ranch I found, which was a little more high-profile, sounded great to begin with, but when you read the fine print, it turned out that they charged EIGHT DOLLARS just to walk in. EIGHT DOLLARS! PER ADULT! Then, the fruit was another eight dollars for a small clamshell--the kind you'd normally get about 12 ounces of blueberries in.
So, no, on principle. This is U pick, not the Disneyland Mulberry Experience.* U pick means you do the actual work.
I found another place, though, that was still going to be open on Sunday--last day. She said they were open but you had to be "very patient." Turns out that means there weren't that many left, which also turned out to be fine, because they were charging $19 A POUND. Yes. Understand that nineteen dollars is usually more than my weekly food budget. But at least it was up front.
Cherries BTW were four dollars a pound.
The three year old was primed to pick mulberries, although she converted fairly easily to the idea of picking strawberries. Also the end of the season for those, of course. The first place we went to had signs all over, "U pick open!!!" "Is the U pick open?" we asked. "No, it's closed, they're all finished." So, uh, turn around an erase your white board, buddy? You're seriously disappointing someone here! But he was very nice, interesting to talk to.
So we tried the $19 farm. They were lovely, and we had a great time--a good thing that the trees weren't loaded, since otherwise you could accumulate about $50 worth of mulberries in about five minutes. We had a wonderful time, though--new to all of us.
We brainstormed about getting my sister to plant mulberry trees. But right now my top priority is finding out how to gene-therapy my fruitless mulberry and turn it back into a tree that's useful for something besides shade.
I ate the few mulberries I had very very slowly.
*Or maybe I should say Knott's Berry Farm. Does that even still exist? |
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Yesterday, after binging it over the course of a week and a half, I went to a discussion about 
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