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A French-Inspired Garden and Home by Judith Stringham

Wild Alabama Blackberries

Tuesday, June 30, 2015


Wild Alabama blackberries ready to give to friends



A tribute to my mother 

Annie Elizabeth
1930 - 2015 

Wild Alabama blackberries ripen in the warm June sunshine and have been part of my life as far back as I can remember.  My grandmother, then my mother, were the true blackberry pickers in our family.  With nimble fingers stained purple, they picked the berries each summer, filling bucket after bucket, while keeping a wary eye out for hornets and snakes that also were attracted to the wild tangled thorny bushes found in the hedgerows that separated cotton fields. 


fresh wild Alabama blackberries were made into cobblers, were made into jam, were canned for the winter months

Summer dinners and suppers sometimes included fresh berries in milk or sometimes just simply a bowl of fresh berries dusted with sugar that formed a sweet syrup.  

In the South, dinner is the midday meal, and supper is the evening meal. 


Wild Alabama blackberries burst with flavor

Wild berries are small and packed with intense flavor not found in the large cultivated blackberries sold in grocery stores.  Just as you've never tasted a real tomato until you've eaten a home-grown one, you've never tasted blackberries until you've tasted ones growing in the wild. 


Wild Alabama blackberries ripen at the same time hydrangeas burst into bloom

Hydrangeas grown in my mother's flower beds bloom during blackberry-picking season.  Hydrangeas and blackberries... one tame in the yard and lovingly tended all year; the other wild and lovingly harvested in June.  Both staples of my mother's southern home and hospitality.  


Wild Alabama blackberries were always shared with family, friends, neighbors

There were always more than enough berries to share generously with extended family members, neighbors, fellow church members, or "anyone who slowed down long enough" to receive some. 


Wild Alabama blackberries covered in sugar make a syrup

None went to waste.  What wasn't eaten, was canned for the dark winter months.  Some jars were filled with berries in sugar syrup for cobblers; other jars were filled with sweet blackberry jam to spread on homemade biscuits for breakfast. 


My mother made a delicious simple cobbler made from fresh wild Alabama blackberries

Most of the time, blackberry cobbler was how we ate the fresh blackberries.  Mother made a simple cobbler.  First, butter melted in the pan, followed by a batter of flour, milk, and sugar, and then topped with blackberries in a sugar syrup thickened by boiling.  The batter rose through the berries as the cobbler baked, creating a browned crust on top of the juicy berries. 


Wild Alabama blackberries were examples of my mother's loving Southern Christian hospitality

This June was Mother's last blackberry season, but she did not pick any.  Rather, after a full week filled with puttering in her garden, planting yet another hydrangea to fill a bare spot, going out to lunch every day with me visiting from Texas, celebrating her 85th birthday with her favorite coconut cake made by her sister-in-law, visiting with her three brothers, having her last supper with my brother's family and me, and going to bed upbeat, happy, and feeling good, she passed from this life as she wanted... peacefully in her sleep.

The loving southern Christian hospitality she exemplified and taught all of us lives on.


Wild Alabama blackberry picking now falls to my sister-in-law

My sister-in-law is the keeper of the family tradition of blackberry picking now.  As she picked wild Alabama blackberries growing on her farm this June, she shared them with everyone "who slowed down long enough" to receive them in the true southern-generosity tradition.  

These two jars are ones I gave my dear friends who lovingly cared for our cats while we were in Alabama saying our goodbyes to Mother. 

Blackberry Winter now includes another dimension to its definition for me. 


Thank you for reading my tribute to my mother. 
~~~~❦~~~~