The Good News Thread In The Age of Corona

I don’t understand what you guys are saying about blackberries!

I had a babysitter who i know loved blackberries, and I’ve seen some growing wild around seasonal streams here, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them for sale, nor eaten blackberries fresh.

What would I be looking for? Why are they invasive in the PNW?

1 Like

I was mainly whining about the Himalayan variety posted about above. Thorny, invasive, and almost impossible to eradicate. The berries are still good but they have hairs on them.

3 Likes

They grow like thickets of thorny bushes, and spread out runs all over. They are truly undesirable to have in your yard; without aggressive maintenance they would overtake everything. Kind of like Kudzu vines maybe, but wickedly thorny. I actually love the flavor of the wild ones, and pick yearly with my skin covered. Still, you can get scratches and punctures. The taste varies year to year, with drier years providing the most intensely fruity and complex flavors, IMO. I always remove the seeds before jamming, because they’re pretty big.

Marionberries as @bbqboy posted about are delicious to be sure, and they have fewer or smaller seeds. I prefer to use them in pies or cobblers, not my 1st choice for jam. Other berry varieties around these parts too, such as ollalaberries. Hope this answers some of your questions @shrinkrap.

1 Like

@Lambchop Thank you! I was just wondering why THERE? Is the climate or soil or something especially good for them there? We have a few here and there where I live, i think by streams that are dry in the summer, but they dont spread. I dont even know if they make fruit! I’ve seen them flowering in the spring, then they sort of fade into the background or maybe even die. I doubt that.

I found this;

The Pacific Northwest’s better (and native) blackberry

1 Like

Luther Burbank was the culprit. Good to know!
:slight_smile:

1 Like

Oh…just one more thing (said in my Columbo voice)…from wikipedia

" It is especially established West of the Cascades in the American Pacific Northwest.[9] It does well in riparian zones due to the abundance of other species in these areas, which allows it to go relatively unnoticed until it has had a chance to establish itself.[8]"

2 Likes

Think they may thrive in coastal areas, and prefer cooler temps; however I think there’s a lot in parts of the south, and in the Eastern and Great Lakes areas too. Safe to say they like an acidic soil, as they tend to be prolific in areas of evergreen forests @shrinkrap. :evergreen_tree:

1 Like

Ahhh! That makes sense!

Thanks to you @shrinkrap, I learned a new word today - riparian! Love it, but it sounds like having something to do with large carnivores…think T Rex. :t_rex:

1 Like

Then your next word is “littoral.”

1 Like

Now you’ve opened Pandora’s box!

1 Like

Word of the day contest?

If after making a chiffonade you cut lengthwise, is it still a chiffonade?

If you saute onions in butter before adding flour what do you have? An onion roux? A roux with onions? Something else?

If Mornay sauce and pasta makes mac & cheese, what exactly is the blue box?

Ricotta or bechamel in lasagna?

What exactly does authentic mean in the context of cuisine?

When you put pineapple and Canadian bacon on pizza what do you call what you have?

When you put beans in chili, what do you have?

If you’re bouncing around and cooking on a boat and accidentally use dish soap instead of oil for grilled cheese sandwiches what do you have? What does it mean when the crew likes it? sigh

Bechamel of course. And it’s lasagne, not lasagna

Nothing. Or almost nothing. It is generally meaningless. The exception might be if a dish had been created by a known person, who has written the recipe down. Say, Escoffier’s recipe for lasagne (if such existed). To recreate it, you might refer to it as an authentic Escoffier version. Generally, “traditional” is going to be a better word.

"Your pizza, I believe. "

3 Likes

Two answers about the blue box mac and cheese. I submit that both are true:

  • What kids like
  • Who knows? :wink:
3 Likes

Yeah, yeah. And you use extra 'u’s. Don’t you know we need to ration during a pandemic? grin

ETA: Apparently lasagne is plural for the noodles and lasagna is the dish.

3 Likes

I gather the usual American spelling is as is the case in southern Italy (where they use ricotta), whereas the usual British spelling comes from the Italian north where they use bechamel. We go to a small Italian owned restaurant when we’re in Tenerife that uses “lasagna” and ricotta. I keep forgetting to ask the owner which part of Italy he’s from.

My wife’s father was born in Trieste and her late mother’s parents also lived in Northern Italy. The whole extended family loves my (English-German-Russian) ricotta lasagna. My wife’s mother’s recipes are generally sacrosanct but my lasagna is in great demand.

I think the bechamel v. ricotta debate is not North v. South in Italy. It is much more localized than that. Town to town or house to house.

What do I know? I put garlic in my spaghetti alla carbonara. grin

Are they extra or superfluous? :thinking:

2 Likes

Well, they are essential where I am unless I want people to think I can’t spell properly. Which I don’t. But, generally, I’d regard them as superfluous. A word without them may not be the correct spelling as I see it, but I can still understand the meaning of the word. So, not necessary as such. It’s probably why an increasing number of folk across the world seem to be learning American English , rather than English English

On a more serious note, we had family who lived in New York state for some years. It was an awful time for my niece, then aged about 9 or 10. She had been uprooted from everything she knew, and every friend she had and dropped into this completely different environment. But, on this subject, she would regularly find her school work marked down because of “poor spelling”. After many weeks/months of this, her parents just had to have a meeting with the school’s headteacher about it. Whilst the head understood the spelling differences, it would seem that others on the teaching staff either had no knowledge or simply didnt care. We like to hope that they were not simply discriminating against a foreigner.

3 Likes

Sadly, I have also noticed that many of the teachers today can’t spell themselves. I saw one spell graphic “graffick.” So maybe that was part of it?

2 Likes