This past weekend, I was home visiting my family in Mansfield, CT, and I was lucky enough to be there when our wineberry bush was starting to come into season.
Nobody ever seems to have heard of wineberries, and I really don’t understand why. They are one of my favorite foods. They’re smaller, tarter, and a brighter red than raspberries, and waxy on the outside.
My father is not exactly a farmer. He planted these years ago when he took a clipping from another bush and buried it near the corner of our vegetable garden. Today, the untended and overgrown bush crowds over almost half of the garden, and we just try to get to the berries before the birds do. Last night, I spent almost an hour climbing around the bush and ducking under the thorns. By the end of it, I had an almost-filled half-pint container of small, shiny, red berries and scratches on my arms and legs to show for it.
I think they can be made into wine, which is where the name comes from, and I believe they’d be good in jam or pies, also, but I don’t have the patience to pick that many and save all of them; I eat them raw and fresh off the stalk. Also, according to the Practically Edible website they are actually native to Asia.
Readers, please, look at these pictures, and if you ever have the chance to taste a wineberry, take it! Have you had them before? Are there any obscure plants in your backyard you think the world needs to know about?
