Blackberries

Let me take a moment to mention how enthralled I am with the latest Google Doodles.

This post is titled "Blackberries" because that was what I was eating just now. I've never had fresh ones before, but Coles was offering two punnets for $4, which was far too good an offer to pass up. And so I came face-to-face with my first real blackberry.

These things are weird. At first I thought they were like grapes, little clusters of smaller fruit gathered up in a bundle, but it quickly became apparent that they have something different going on. The little spheres, or "drupelets", do not hang on a stem independently, but are rather more like little protrusions attached to a central mass. Each drupelet contains a small seed, so the structure is somewhat similar to a strawberry, if strawberries had fleshy lobes cushioning each seed. (Both blackberries and strawberries are classified as aggregate fruits.) The central mass is firmer than the surrounding drupelets, and a little sweeter.

It's rather intriguing to note that blackberries have a distinct flavour - I doubt it would be possible to substitute them in a recipe, not even with the closely-related raspberries. All of which means I'll have to try out some blackberry-based recipes while I'm still in a country which grows them.

Hmm... Blackberry pie for Pi Day, perhaps?