Blackberry

Rubus spp.

fruit

Black, juicy berries of the bramble, a thorny sub-shrub 1 to 7 metres tall of temperate hedges and woods; picked at the end of summer along the paths. They provide anthocyanins, ellagitannins and fibre.

Origin

Hedgerows and brambles of Europe

Season (United States)

August to September · grows in your region

Preparation

Eaten raw and whole, seeds included, after a quick rinse; also cooked into jam, jelly or tarts. Its skin is eaten, and that is where its polyphenols sit: worth keeping, then — but under running water, rubbing it, which is what takes off most of what settles there, organic or not.

Molecules

Anthocyanins · Ellagitannins · Insoluble fibersIn small amounts, not counted Pectins · Vitamin C · Manganese

Did you know?

Blackberry brambles form over 375 species, so often crossed and cloned that botanists group them into “aggregates”; and the French word for bramble, ronce, comes from the Latin rumex, “dart”.