A Mulberry Childhood

(This is one of a series of articles I wrote dealing with memories of an African childhood. To read the first of these, click here)

I had a mulberry childhood. By this I mean that, growing up in Africa, I had no experience of the blackberries that are everywhere in the temperate climate of Northern Europe and America. The berry that filled that gap for me was the mulberry.

They are superficially similar. Both berries are composed of juicy, dark purple globes clustered around a central core. The blackberry tends to be round whereas the mulberry is larger and more elongated into an oval but they could be mistaken for each other, since blackberries vary greatly in size and shape. There the resemblance ends, however.

The mulberry grows on a tree rather than the rambling, thorny and unbiquitous bush that is the blackberry, the ferocious weed that is known so appropriately as a bramble when it is not bearing fruit. And the mulberry tree is large, quite capable of overtopping the houses around which it is often planted in Africa.

The leaves, so famously the chosen diet of the silkworm (which led to every child in Africa spending at least some time in raising the caterpillars to golden cocoons with the vague hope of spinning silk), are a bright, light green in color, about the size of your palm and teardrop-shaped with a serrated edge.

Even when not bearing fruit, the tree is a noble sight, the shade it offers a welcome respite from the African sun. Although not as common as the bramble is in Europe, mulberry trees are plentiful enough, their charms and hardiness making them an obvious choice for planting.

For the small child, however, they present a problem. When mature, the tree offers no branches within reach to allow for easy climbing. The fruit hangs in profusion upon the branches but, if you wait for them to fall, the berries very quickly become squashed dark stains upon the ground. The temptation of that sweet-tasting fruit (so much better than the rather tart blackberry that serves the same purpose in the north) is such that, sooner or later, a solution will be found.

I was fortunate in that the backyard of my childhood had a full grown mulberry tree behind some outhouses. It spread its branches just at the height of the flat roof of these outhouses so that, with determination, I could climb up to the roof, there to sit and pick mulberries at my leisure.

And here we come to another difference between the two berries. Mulberry juice stains. It stains at the slightest opportunity, spreading its purple blotches over clothes, skin and tongue, so that the evidence of a mulberry foray is immediately and obviously evident. The blackberry cannot compete with that dark signature.

It is not that I was forbidden these fruits or scolded for the marks upon my clothes. I am amazed now to recall how much freedom I was allowed in those days; outside the house I was without restraint and could go where and do whatever I pleased. Somehow I survived the experience.

To come to England and participate every autumn in the tradition of blackberry-picking brought reminders of those mulberry days but it was not quite the same. Few blackberries were eaten right there and then; they were too sour to encourage overindulgence and were generally destined to make preserves for the winter. Mulberries were too tasty to make it as far as the preserve jar!

So I missed the mulberries of my youth and blackberries were a poor substitute. England had a surprise in store for me, however.

Just south of Coventry there is an old stately home known as Stoneleigh Abbey. The grounds were open to the public and the family often used to visit in summer to stroll around and enjoy the well-tended gardens. One day we came across a tree that bore dark, berry-like fruit and we began to wonder what it could be. It looked like a mulberry but surely they did not grow so far north? There was only one way to find out.

Surreptitiously we picked as much of the fruit as we could reach, then secreted our haul amongst ourselves and left quickly. Back at home we examined our ill-gotten gains. Certainly they looked like mulberries, a little larger than we were used to but exactly the right shape and color. We tried them.

They were mulberries alright but so different from what we expected. They were full of juice yet insipid in taste; somehow having lost their strength in growing so large. I surmised that the abundance of water in England was the cause, that our African mulberries had been more sparing in their production of juice and so concentrated the flavor.

It was a disappointment after the excitement of our discovery but, even so, it was good to know that the mulberry tree can survive the English winter. That lone tree was like an old friend whose presence in a corner of England was somehow comforting. We always visited it when at Stoneleigh but never again did we time it right to be there in its fruiting season. If you happen to be at the Abbey for some reason, keep an eye out for a tall, leafy tree with dark berries amongst its foliage...

Technorati tags: Mulberry; Africa; Berries; Blackberry.

(to read the next of the African Memories articles, click here)