Blackberry

In the second week of June, ‘Blackberry Time’ begins across South Carolina. For four glorious weeks in every county in the state, the wild bushes, thickly laden with berries, turn from sour red to sweeter black. “We are living in better times than was that of the days when manna rained. Along the fence rows, the ditch banks, the old field—everywhere throughout this good land of ours—the blackberries are ripening” (“Blackberry Time” 1915). Children risked the thorns for the fruit, and home cooks processed buckets of berries into a host of dishes. Of native small fruits it vied with huckleberries as the finest—less insipid than mulberries, more flavorful than wild strawberries. Indeed, it rivaled cultivated fruits in popularity. Consider this comment by an Edgefield connoisseur in 1894: “The blackberry is a plebeian berry not to be named some say, in the same breath the plutocratic raspberry and strawberry, yet this same blackberry is the best all round berry in these United States. With cream and sugar they are delicious, in pies they are equally nice, and jam, wine, vinegar, cordial, etc., made of this abundant fruit are both wholesome and tempting to the palate.”