Their Words/Your Hands: Blackberry Season

Late August, given heavy rain and sun

For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.

At first, just one, a glossy purple clot

Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.

You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet

Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it

Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for

Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger

Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots

Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.

Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills

We trekked and picked until the cans were full,

Until the tinkling bottom had been covered

With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned

Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered

With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.

But when the bath was filled we found a fur,

A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.

The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush

The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.

I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair

That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.

Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

- Seamus Heaney, Blackberry Picking

Blackberry season comes earlier here in DC than in Ireland; the dregs of our first batch from the farmer’s market just succumbed to rot.  Fortunately, most of them made it into our greedy mouths. Another batch went into the below recipe for Blackberry Pistachio Icebox Cake, which I made yesterday for a work pot-luck.

Blackberry Pistachio Icebox Cake

1 1/2 cups heavy cream, chilled
1 1/2 teaspoons rose water
1/4 cup sugar
A couple of packets of tea biscuit cookies, or whatever absorbent, not-too-sweet wafer you find lying around (I used the Caramel/Toffee flavor of pizzelle from Whole Foods)
3 cups blackberries, sliced in half
2/3 cup unsalted pistachio nuts, toasted and roughly chopped
1/4 cup pomegranate molasses (or more, to taste)

In a large bowl, combine cream, rose water, and sugar. Use electric mixer to whip mixture on high speed until it holds stiff peaks.

Line the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish (or whatever size you have handy) with wafers. Spread on one quarter of the cream. Sprinkle one quarter of the blackerries and pistachios on top, and finish with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses. Repeat for four layers.

Cover and chill in refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight.


Brazenly stolen and slightly reworded from Max Falkowitz’s recipe on Serious Eats