Weird people call them blackberries but up here in Yorkshire we call them brambles. Don't ask me why - it's just the way it is.
We have bramble bushes at the bottom of our garden. Apart from anything else, they form a prickly barrier that discourages potential intruders. Better than a burglar alarm or a rabid dog and what is more you can eat the brambles. They are good for scattering on muesli at breakfast time and you can put them in pies or make bramble jelly with them.
Because of the unsettled weather we have been experiencing in northern England this summer, the brambles have really thrived and now they are beginning to ripen. I visited the bottom of the garden late this morning and soon collected a pound and a half of the fruit.
Afterwards, I went to get some shopping from our local "Lidl" store and remembered to buy some ready rolled puff pastry. I needed this to make two bramble pies - one for us and one for our lovely next door neighbours - Jill and Tony. I scattered some caster sugar over the brambles and drizzled a spoonful of honey before putting pastry lids on the pies.
If you would like to smell my pies press the "Insert" and "F6" buttons on your computer keyboard and the aroma of baking bramble pies will emerge from the USB ports and other electrical orifices. Mmmmmm! We shall be eating slices of our pie later with some single cream.
Oh my gosh! I'm about to drool looking at that picture! Your neighbors are lucky. All my current neighbors have given me is a hard time. :)
ReplyDeleteHard time? Well stop playing Guns n'Roses at full volume in the early hours of the morning!
DeleteLooks lovely. I'm afraid my F6 button seems to be out of order - but I can almost smell them anyway... ;)
ReplyDeleteYou may need to replace your computer ma'am. Really up-to-date computers have the "SmellyWorld" app pre-loaded. Mind you, you might be grateful you haven't got it when you see pictures of farm animals online.
DeleteOK, I think I need to call tech support, because that didn't work for me at all. :)
ReplyDeleteYour pies look amazing, though! I've been picking tons of "brambles" here, too. (I think I asked you this before, but is "bramble" the word for the berry as well as the vine? I thought "brambles" were the vines but the berries were...well...berries.)
It's like you are poking a bear with a sharp stick! The brambles are the berries and the bush with its prickly shoots is a bramble bush or bramble plant
DeleteI also thought that bramble was a generic term to describe the bushes not a particular fruit, as in the following... "A bramble is any rough, tangled, prickly shrub, usually in the genus Rubus, the blackberries and raspberries and dewberries..."
ReplyDeleteWe used to pick blackberries as kids but I was put off eating them when I saw the little white grubs emerging from the berries. Eeewww.
I have never seen "the" little white grubs emerging from our brambles. It is a shame that that experience put you off brambles for life.
DeleteWe have had the little white grubs too. yuk!
ReplyDeleteI went picking blackberries yesterday. I got about a pound. Lots more coming but not ripe yet. I've stashed mine in the freezer and when I've got enough, I shall make bramble jelly.
Your pies look great.
Sod that Paul Hollywood fella, Yorkshire Pudding makes better pies!
DeleteI knew it! I knew it! Once more it has been confirmed. I am weird! Whew! I would hate to lose my title!
ReplyDeleteThat being said, blackberries are... have always been...blackberries to me; blackberries they shall remain to me.
Your pies look deliciously tempting, Yorkie! I'll bet you had a double pour of the single cream! (I would...and a double slice or two of pie, too!)
I thought that Miss Piggy was in "The Muppet Show" and not in a cabin in Queensland!
DeleteNope! She's alive and well here, openly ready to admit when she likes some sweet foods, she likes them, and when the sweet thing demands, she enjoys it with gusto...and cream, custard, or ice cream!
DeleteShe is her own boss,and does whatever she wants...just don't tell her two furry mates that, though.
The pussies are in charge!
DeleteI was forever explaining brambles to my southern mother-in-law, and that it's rasp-berries not rarzbriz, and goose-berries not guzbriz.
ReplyDeleteThem theer southerners have no idea how to talk proper. Tonight I heard two BBC news reporters referring to Parkistarn and not - as it should be - Packistan. It's infuriating.
DeleteP.S. What on earth made you wed a southerner?
It was love. But she soon learnt to talk proper. It didn't go down too well to go into peoples' homes in Bradford or Wakefield and ask how they were getting on with their barthing (that's barth wih a voiced 'th').
DeleteSo if I read you right, she was employed as a bathing assistant. Did that require a degree?
DeleteWell, we call them blackberries and they are a treat. I used to go out into the wild to pick them where they are to be found and between the horrible sharp thorns and the snakes and the heat, it just got to where I could not do it. Yours are gorgeous and I love the jam I used to make from them.
ReplyDeleteI am glad there are no snakes at the bottom of our garden! If there were I might not bother to pick our brambles.
DeleteAdmit it, they are just blackberries and the bushes are blackberry bushes! Never did care for them myself - too seedy. And now I can't eat them anyway, along with all the other berries in the world, which I DO miss.
ReplyDeleteI expect that on my deathbed my last words expelled with my last breath will be, "They're brambles! Brambles!" I have never heard of anybody having to remove berries from their diet. I am very sorry to hear this my little ripe bramble!
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