Summer seasonal food in Britain - wild raspberries

The raspberry is my favourite British native fruit - strictly speaking, it is green on the bushes just now, gradually ripening in the warmer weather until the red berries are ready from June onwards. Raspberries are grown a lot in fruit farms especially in areas of Scotland, but you can find plenty wild too.

Here is a picture of them just growing in the countryside where anybody may pick them.

If you look closely you can see the little red raspberries on the canes in the front right of the picture.
I used to help my family go out and pick these wild in the countryside in the summer holidays. This was an important summer task. Then we would make them into jam to save for the autumn and winter. We would have some fresh raspberries as well, perhaps with cream.

If you have a lot of raspberries and want to use them up, then you can even make them into a fruit crumble.

This was one of my favourite summer puddings. To make it, you gently simmer the raspberries in a pan. You can add sugar if you like, but they are already sweet and juicy. The you prepare the crumble mixture by rubbing together flour and butter - some people add sugar to this mixture as well. Then you place the raspberries in an oven dish and sprinkle the crumble on top in a thick layer. Finally bake the dish in a moderately hot oven for about twenty five minutes.

You can serve this raspberry crumble with cream or ice cream or custard if you like.

If you enjoyed this column, you could read this column on British baking, or try my Scottish food lesson

https://cafetalk.com/column/read/?c=eJwLygrX9ygxycu28Dd2Two3ywwzNysOtLUFAF78B2Y.&lang=en

By Wild Raspberry (Rubis idaeus) by Anne Burgess, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=126326045
By Raspberry patch by Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=138368927

Comments (2)

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EmilyGL

May 22, 2024

Thanks, Charlotte. Yes, they are sweet enough to enjoy without adding sugar and you can just eat them off they bush - they are not as sweet as blueberries or grapes, but are very respectable for wild fruit. Not tart like gooseberries!nnPeople with a sweet tooth do add sugar when having them with cream, however, or making a crumble.
Charlotte A

May 22, 2024

Thanks for the article, Emily. I am curious, are the wild raspberries sweet?

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