A Ripe Mulberry

I've always had a soft spot for the English luxury house Mulberry (I share my surname with one of their gorgeous satchels and often fancy it was named after me) but now I'm developing a thing for the actual berries too.

After reading this post over on Mud Pie I was hungry to sample the fruits of my own tree. It had been covered in berries for weeks but they were all green - so last week at the first sight of one turning red I plucked it from the tree and hungrily gobbled it up. It was tangy and bitter and not quite ripe. I hastily googled how long it takes for mulberries to ripen - and discovered than unripe berries are hallucinogenic. Great. I panicked for a second but thankfully I didn't spend the rest of the evening in a psychedelic stupor.

So I was a little more patient for this second berry and actually waited for it to turn black. 

Doesn't it look divine? So plump and glossy! I'm happy to report it's flavour was a huge improvement from the first under-ripe mulberry.

Apparently mulberries aren't commonly available in stores because they're so delicate and would get bruised in the packing and transportation processes. Although a part of me thinks that the farmers just never have enough to sell - the berries simply get plucked off the tree and eaten straight away!