Berry Berry

It is one of the hazards of being a food blogger that people will call upon you to address weighty matters during pub-time conversations, such as:

When is a berry not a berry?

The answer, of course, is “More often than you might think”, and I would love to be able to say that, when asked, I rattled off the details of this answer to the amazement of all present. Instead, I could only dredge up a dim memory from school biology that there was, indeed, a bit more to the definition of berry than small edible fruit, but I’m afraid no amount of gin & tonic could help me get further than that. Rather, it took a quick chat with my friend the internet before my memory was, er, suitably refreshed.

The fact of the matter is that most of the things that we refer to as berries – strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, cranberries – are not berries in the botanical sense, whereas some distinctly unberrylike fruits, technically, are (and, yes, banana, I’m looking at you). The crux of the matter is that, botanically speaking, a berry is a simple fruit produced from a single plant ovary. Once other parts of the flower or plant start getting involved in the fruit, you are dealing with a berry no more.

So there you go. I apologise if I have shattered all of your berry-based illusions. You can take some comfort from the fact that gooseberries, at least, are fully paid-up members of the berry clan. Plus it’s doubtful that the plant police are going to swoop down on anyone for persisting with the idea that a blueberry is, y’know, a berry in the commonly understood sense of the word. If they were, I’d have to figure out how to properly refer to both the blueberries I got from my Ma’s local supplier the other day and to the sauce that resulted. Somehow, “the fruit formerly known as blueberry (and sauce thereof)” just doesn’t quite cut it.

Have blueberries, will make sauce