Wild Maine raspberries can be delicious if handled properly. By this I mean, picked, washed, and stored quickly in a refrigerator. If not, the thing that happened to me could happen to you.
I had spent two hours, on a cold wet New England morning, picking a pound or so of ripe wild heirloom raspberries. I stored them in a plastic bag as I walked through the field. Even with the gentlest of touch some of the berries turned to juice before I got them back to my cabin.
I left Maine the following morning and got home 12 hours later. I was not surprised to see more liquid than solid in the bag. Without stopping to taste the liquid, I popped the berry bag into our home fridge.
The next day, I checked the bag and noticed it was full of little bubbles. Intrigued, I opened the bag, took a spoon, scooped out some of the liquid, and tasted it.
Ahh, it had changed. It was not a sweet syrupy liquid of pure raspberry sweetness. Instead it had turned into a bubbly beer like substance with just a hint of raspberry.
Then I remembered some information I read from The Everything Guide To Foraging book by Vickie Shufer that said all wild fruit have natural yeast on the outside of them.
So, if you have a chance to pick wild raspberries and don't want them to change into beer, wash them before you store them.
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| Maine wild heirloom raspberry |
I left Maine the following morning and got home 12 hours later. I was not surprised to see more liquid than solid in the bag. Without stopping to taste the liquid, I popped the berry bag into our home fridge.
The next day, I checked the bag and noticed it was full of little bubbles. Intrigued, I opened the bag, took a spoon, scooped out some of the liquid, and tasted it.
Ahh, it had changed. It was not a sweet syrupy liquid of pure raspberry sweetness. Instead it had turned into a bubbly beer like substance with just a hint of raspberry.
Then I remembered some information I read from The Everything Guide To Foraging book by Vickie Shufer that said all wild fruit have natural yeast on the outside of them.
So, if you have a chance to pick wild raspberries and don't want them to change into beer, wash them before you store them.
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