The Zen of Berry Picking

There have been many discussions about the power of smell to trigger memories. This morning I was on my walk to Starbucks and passed a patch of blackberries and the smell was amazing!

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve picking blackberries. Our extended family, frequently including 2/3s of the 16 cousins on my mom's side of the family, would meet at the family ranch in Northern California on Redwood Creek.

Usually this involved the family cooking for summer camps that rented the facility. Everyone, grandma and grandpa, aunts, occasionally uncles and all of us kids did everything from baking bread to washing pots. But the highlight was the occasional trip to one of the acres of Himalayan blackberry patches that are the curse/blessing of unforested land on the West Coast north of San Francisco.

These trips were frequently organized by Daryl, the oldest male cousin of the clan, and usually happened prior to breakfast being prepared. The valley where the ranch was located was frequently very warm during the day, but at 6:30am, it could be very damp and chilly. The berry picking outings were highly ritualized and upon reflection, I've found that lessons I learned were really quite profound. Here are several:

If you don't pick you don't eat--Since the berry patches were not cultivated but wild, tangled, prickly patches of vines that often grew 8 or 10 feet high and the vines were covered with thorns that frequently were 1/2 an inch or more long, it required some motivational effort to get the troops productive. So Daryl would frequently prod the sleepy or just uninterested to action by pointing out that they would be cut out of the berry toast (berries cooked to a syrup consistency with sugar and cornstarch), the berry cobbler or berry pie.

Since these were family delicacies, this was usually enough to get most recalcitrant cousin trundling across the acres of fields to the berry patch.

What was interesting is that I never remember anybody actually being denied the berry delicacies in the end. While the exhortations were long and often loud, once the berries were picked, everybody got to eat. . . and interesting exercise in motivation and compassion.

If you pick berries, you're going to get stuck--You can't pick wild blackberries without encountering the thorns. It is just not possible. And, because of the remarkable engineering of these thorns, once you are hooked, getting loose is an exercise in patience and non-resistance.

What you quickly learn is that once you are hooked, not amount of tugging, pulling or yanking will extricate you from the prickly clutches of the vines. You must notice the direction the vine is growing, then slowly and careful move with the vine and one by one the thorns release. Jerking away simply imbedded the thorns more and more securely.

You can dress in long sleeved shirts and tough jeans and reduce the pain of the stickers slightly, but if you are going to be productive at picking, getting stuck is part of the deal. You learn to live with the pricking and sticking and notice that the pain they create is far less of you just keep picking and gently work your way free.

If the berries resist, let them go--One of the big challenges of picking wild berries is that the biggest, juicest looking berries are frequently not ready to pick. It seems that the threshold between ripe and sour with these berries is binary. They don't slowly get less sour and more sweet as they mature. The seem to go from sour to sweet like the throw of a switch.

And the only reliable measure of ripeness is whether the berry is ready to release from the stem. If gentle pressure from thumb and forefinger don't cause the berry to drop into your hand, the berry isn't ready.

In reality, you don't pick blackberries, you tickle them off the vine. Pulling and tugging leave you with a bucket full of berries very quickly, but no amount of sugar will make them taste like a bucket of ripe berries.

Sometimes you just have to leave the biggest and the best--We developed all kinds of strategies, often with very painful consequences to get at those "perfect" berries we couldn't reach. The berries that grow in the "strike zone" between your waist and shoulder are always the easiest to pick and so in a frequently picked patch, the ripe berries go quickly.

As kids, we would haul long planks that we would lean into the huge tangle of vines. These planks would crush the vines, kind of, and allow us access to the berries that no one else could reach. However, the potential for disaster was great! One slip or loss of balance and one could tumble into the vines. Then getting out was a major operation that frequently resulted in multiple deep scratches and even blood flow.

As we matured, we learned that many berries were missed by the casual picker at knee level. Picking these berries required us to get a little muddy or dusty, as one had to kneel to get at them, but the berries were often bigger and riper than any we might get struggling to get the elusive "high" berry.

The last half of the bucket fills much slower than the first half--Inspired by the motivational efforts of Daryl, we would of announce in advance that we would "fill our buckets" before we quit. I'm not at all sure what the principle involved here is, but inevitably, the first half of the bucket would fill quickly. The last half seemed to take forever.

What was interesting was how satisfying it was to return with the bucket really full! I don't understand it, but it felt really good to lug that gallon can or mixing bowl back to the cookhouse brimming, rather than just kind of full.

Eating berries is key to picking berries--Some berry pickers think that every berry you eat is one less berry that goes to filling up the bucket. Hence, eating berries while you pick is counter-productive.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Eating berries while you pick makes the process truly fulfilling! From vine to vine, from location to location, the kind of berry that is ripe can only be determined by eating berries while you pick. The amount of pressure to apply to tickle the really ripe berries off the vines can only be calibrated by constant feedback.

The natural tendency is to start tugging berries to fill your bucket. Constantly sampling berries keeps your pressure sensors properly calibrated. All it takes is one big, juicy berry pulled off the vine that leaves you puckered up worse than lemon and your fingers start letting berries drop instead pulling. It is remarkable.

In addition, the flavor of a ripe, just picked berry can't be described. You have to experience it. And while eating these fresh, ripe berries, you're reminded of the wonderful dishes to come! It is probably the most powerful picking motivation available.

So, what does this all mean? Well, some of the lessons are obvious. Some are much more zen-like. I'll tackle the lessons I've been able to apply in other posts.