to wonder why there are blackberries going bad whilst people complain that they don't have enough money to feed their family healthy food.

[froken]

We went blackberry picking today, I was expecting a couple of manky blackberries to be left because I hear so often in the media and on mumsnet people saying how they struggle to feed their dc healthy food and sometimes people saying they have a hard time finding enough money to feed their dc at all.

There was a huge amount of blackberries, we were a 20 min walk outside a major city so an easily accessible place for 1000s of families.

We picked 9 pounds of blackberries.

Aibu to think that it would be a good idea for those struggling to feed their family a healthy diet (and those struggling to feed their family at all) should be out picking the free fruit that grows all over England's public spaces?

Sloe gin recipe (one of many!)

Thank you Peaches! That's MIL's Christmas sorted.

No idea, I only drink, I rely on others to make it. S'ok, I'll slap my own wrists.

Go to Aldi for your gin and vodka for making stuff.

If people are kind to me I might share my recipes for Chilli and Christmas Pudding vodkas..........

Do google images for pictures of sloes on the bush.
I once saw a documentary about a couple who made belladonna pie. It was one fo the funniest things I have ever seen on television. But they did nearly die so, you know...

Froken, what have you started??

Oooh those things! I recognise them!

Peaches it's wrong for me to laugh but I indeed just did.

Just so I dont look to much of a Bitch. The Couple were okay I take it Peaches?

I think the OP has made a good point in asking why more people don't pick blackberries. However, if you're struggling to feed your family you can't live on blackberries alone.

We have hardly any blackberries where I live (at least not ones I can reach without a ladder). Some years ago I went on a blackberry-picking walk with the Ramblers in a different location. There must have been about 30 of us and we all picked several containers' worth of blackberries.

I agree that it's fine as a hobby, and think it would be pretty miserable if you had to find these things to supplement your diet.

I think a foraging thread would be nice. Let people know what to look for on a month-by-month basis.

My book says that foraging has lost its note of eccentricity now (so there )

i have an old friend who writes books on this stuff - feel i should probably be giving him a plug...

I have seen many foreigners both in the UK and when I lived abroad abroad foraging and making the most of free food - collecting cockles/crabs, hunting rabbits, going out for truffles or mushrooms, for example. In the UK it seems to be considered a sort of slightly batty/niche hobby that only middle class followers of Hugh FW indulge in.

I think the OP has a point that as a culture we have come to expect food to land in our laps ready prepared and shrink wrapped and we've lost touch (all of us really, not just hard up people) with how to get the best out of simple inexpensive food that is reasonably easily available. Sort of what Jamie Oliver was saying as well, except it's not always expressed terribly well and comes across as 'let them eat cake' or an attack on the poor.

Although some people are just so blinkered and bloody minded and have the most bizarre defeatist/negative attitude, and are determined to see any creative suggestion as an attack on the poor no matter what.

Thanks to this thread, I've been out collecting blackberries this morning.
I also some huge bunches of elderberries as well. I may be back so I can make lots of elderberry wine for Christmas hic

I also some

Should read " I also SAW some."

MissPixieTrix, yes they were fine after a short spell in hospital. NB this was only because they had frozen and baked the berries, otherwise they'd have been goners.

The middle-aged and rather beige couple had collected the berries while out walking, frozen them, then Mrs had baked them into a pie for Valentine's Day. The police were called two days later because they hadn't opened their curtains. The young copper looked through the letterbox and saw them "in what I can only describe as a state of undress, crouching on all fours and howling" He looked absolutely stricken.

I was in hysterics I'm afraid. They were so...respectable. Apparently they'd had two days of mad hallucinations and took another little while to come down. The forensics people had found the pie dish, sent the seeds to be analysed, and I think were amazed they survived.

They'd picked the berries 'because they looked so pretty'.

I know it's not funny to laugh but honestly, the report was so po-faced, it was utterly hilarious and has clearly made an impression on me because I think it was on about twelve years ago I really should empty my brain.

Please post if you find it. It was part of a prog about poisons, there was also a little girl who chewed lead paint off the window ledges 'because it tasted sweet'.

Oh Bless them! I once had to go A & E with Ds. He had done that pea in ear thing . Anyway the room absolutely reeked of Olbas Oil. Turned out a LO had downed the bottle whilst the Parents werent looking! Wonder What the LO's excuse was because that certainly dont smell sweet. Never felt the need to taste it myself

i had to be taken to a&e once as a kid for sticking the end out of a bic pen up my nose.

i also bit a nurse apparently.

We just came home from our dog walk, bumped into a woman i know who had picked some blackberries to make a pie - i called her a middle class twat, obviously DD wanted to go blackberry picking but quite frankly, there is only so much blackberry jam i can eat!

I couldn't find it, Peaches, but your post describing their behaviour and the poor policeman's face has been amusing me for hours

I have found a new blackberry use. Bribing ds to sit in his pram whilst I pushed him up the hill to my mums house is a challenge but my sister picked a handful of blackberries and put one in his mouth every 30 seconds and he was happy the whole way home!