EAT, DRINK

 »Juice of the Month

Blackberry-Apple Juice

The humble, but viciously-thorned blackberry is so ubiquitous it's almost banal. Except that it's not. Blackberries are very, very tasty and so is their juice.

From August into September, in many parts of North America, you can see long-sleeved people in long pants, with their plastic containers, beside the road, gingerly picking these delectable fruits. (They're normally bleeding somewhere at the end of the adventure.)

Fresh blackberries make exceptionally delicious jellies, according to my mother. They also add dimension to margaritas, muffins and turn a conservative apple crumble into the kind of fare that brothel workers might snack on to get them in the mood for a night's labour on the weekend of a payday. (Not from my mother's imagination.)

Yep, there's something sexy, or at least sensual, about the simple blackberry. At its best, these segmented items are plump, juicy and sweet. Selecting them in this state, however, takes skill. You have to be able to distinguish the black from the merely dark blue. This is not an easy task in August's bright sunshine. Picking an unripe berry means you pay the price. Sour to the extreme, I've seen many an unripe blackberry follow a projectile path from the mouths of my children to the ground below. The bitterness leaves tasters surprised, but you quickly learn the difference between ripe and not quite ripe.

By September, the blackberry-picking job becomes easier. There are fewer berries and fewer pickers with whom to compete. This makes September a prime time to make blackberry juice.

On its own, the liquid squeezed from the blackberry is rich and thick. A background of apple juice offers a lighter taste while drinking. Be liberal with the apple. Too much blackberry juice and you have the sensation that Halloween is much closer than it is, and that you are drinking a cup of pretend blood, which is kind of what blackberry juice looks like, even with the apple juice.

Blackberry juice is rich and delicious and full of the taste of late summer leaching into early fall. It has a slight tartness to remind you that the berry season is over, that the only berries you'll get from now will probably be frozen, and that it's time to give yourself to whatever autumn has to offer. On the upside, you are leaving behind a seasonal calamity in the form of stained white t-shirts.

So squeeze, crush, obliterate some apples into juice, drop in a few blackberries and taste the last of the summer. Start getting yourself ready for Halloween.

If you'd like to see the nutritional breakdown of blackberry juice, or a wide range of other foods, check the US Department of Agriculture site. A searchable database has a comprehensive list of the various components of virtually any food. What does it all mean? Well, that's why we have a nutritionist in the Ladies' Room, to make sense of it all.

Read the Nutritionist's Note for this juice.