A few weeks ago I went on a foraging walk with the “Wildman” Steve Brill. He showed the group a tree with edible berries and I knew right away I had seen them before, loads of them. So long story short, I had a wild harvest of probably about 15-20 lbs. of berries. I feel as if I barely made a dent in the grove either, so I did leave plenty for the birds.
What was I to do with a boat-load of small berries that have seeds in the middle?
I looked up some recipes and most were for jam. They all had a different way of trying to get the seeds out, like pressing it through a potato masher or a sieve, etc. etc. I tried boiling them for about a half hour and pressing them through a small strainer, but the pulp all got stuck in the strainer. I thought to myself “Some jelly this is going to be.” So I decided I would continue doing what I was doing and press all the liquid out and then reduce it until it becomes a full flavored syrup (almost).
After it had reduced for about 45 minutes under very low heat, I let it cool and put the delicious berry syrup into ice cube trays. Now, I have about 40 ice cubes and 1 jar full of dense berry flavor I can use for whatever I wish.
One side note – If your going to try this, the berries will burn on the bottom of the pot if the heat is on high or even medium, so bring it up to te boil very slowly and keep mixing! I learned the hard way.
; )
Some ideas for use:
Pancake Syrup – Mix with Maple Syrup (tried it – it was real good)
Mix with Vodka or any other liquid you want (Orange juice or other juices)
Use it in a sauce – It has about 17X the lycopene as tomatoes (which is what gives it the red pigment)
Interesting Fact:
-According to a USDA article, analysis showed that, ounce for ounce, the typical autumn olive berry is up to 17 times higher in lycopene than the typical raw tomato. Lycopene has generated widespread interest as a possible deterrent to heart disease and cancers of the prostate, cervix and gastrointestinal tract.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 John Kellas // Aug 24, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Saw your pic of Autumn Olive Berries when trying to identify a different red berry. My son and I found some those Olive berries when foraging near his old high school. so how do they taste?
Wow, someone beside my son & myself actually realize that berries don’t only come in a plastic box at the supermarket.
We got a huge amount of delicious Raspberries near the LIE when they were in season. Once a young policeman actually stopped and suspicously asked me what I was up to. He expected me to be up to “no good” and was flustered when I told me I was picking berries, prob. never of foraging.
Just to be fair, once an older guy stopped, but he was cool, just asked if we (car) were OK.
2 David // Aug 25, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Hi John,
Funny Story. I do the same thing. Was picking some Wineberries on the side of a road and many people passing by would give looks like “what’s this guy up to?” I love to be the crazy guy picking berries.
Also I am always on the lookout for berries of all kinds when I am hiking. Found some delicious blackberries on the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt Trail, loads of wild blues on the trails.
The Autumn Olive Berries have a sweet taste with a tart finish, but if you get them ripe they are real sweet. It’s tough to eat a whole lot of them because of the little seed in the middle, but if you can find em (email me for a good spot to get em – david@ligrows.com) bag em up and pick on em as a snack. It’s fun to forage, feels like I am getting back to my roots. The birds love em too. They’re always hangin around the trees. The tree is native to Eastern Asia and is an invasive species here.
I first found out about them from the Wildman Steve Brill. He gives tours of the forest and shows you what you can eat in the wild!! I wrote an article about my trip with him. Here’s the address:
http://www.ligrows.com/blog/wildman-steve-brills-into-the-wild-adventure/
or you could visit his site and see some funny and interesting things (he once got arrested for picking the dandelions out of the ground in central park to eat them, ha!)
http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/
Check his schedule, he comes around the island, queens and the city fairly often. You and your son would enjoy him, he is very humorous and sometimes brings his daughter as well. Thanks for the comment and look forward to hearing more of your Long Island findings.
3 Leonore Alaniz // Sep 13, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Hi everyone! These berries are really great.
I removed seeds from raw berries by grinding them in a old-fashioned heavy metal wheat-grass grinder, the type one used for fronding meat. The front clogs up soon requiring frequent cleaning, the pulp is good however, separating further water from pulp. THAT pulp i used for fruit leather as well as the crock-pot slow cooked and strained berries.
I “cook” the berries at low heat in crock pot – where the pulp can be reduced by lengthening the cooking time. (Not my choice). Its true that the sweetness varies of berries, AM sun gives richer yield. I used stevia or nothing to sweeten. Served them up after straining them in sieve as “mousse”. everybody loved it. Use as topping os cake fill, spice them up with exotoc spices, make them hot/sour or sweet sour r all of the above… They cooperate!
Ref Fruit leather: The wax paper came off when it was oiled (with sesame oil), but not oiled wax paper would not separate and I wind up chewing the leather with w-paper then spitting it out.
Does freezer paper work better? Thank you, Leonore
4 David // Sep 22, 2010 at 8:10 am
Wow Leonore! Great stuff. I have a metal wheat grass grinder and will have to try that. It’s almost time for harvesting these little babies. And making fruit leather is a great idea too. I have never tried it so I am not sure about the freezer paper. Ill get back at ya when I try it myself.
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