Are Those Mulberries on My Salad?

Why, yes.  Yes, they are.  I found some new mulberry trees in a secret location where the branches are low and the competing wildlife less voracious.  (Also, I noticed that the black raspberries are starting to come into their own, so keep your eye out for those, too.)

I love turning salad into dessert.  Because do you know how much salad I eat when it tastes like dessert?  Four times as much.  So much that having “a little salad” before my evening jog turns into “a lot of salad” before my evening jog such that I practically throw up halfway through my evening jog.  Add this to the list of totally preventable circumstances if only I could have helped myself.

The responsible salad was farmshare greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula, endive) with foraged mulberries, sliced red onion, goat cheese, and walnuts with a balsamic vinaigrette.  It was delicious next to rosemary and fennel-crusted pork chops.  (I might have eaten a little of those, too.)  (And a hunk of defrosted baguette.)

Anyway, I don’t need any lectures, Husband.  I’ve already learned my lesson about stuffing myself a half-hour before physical exertion.  And the lesson is that jogging is dumb!

Local Ingredient Sources:
Lettuce, spinach, arugula, endive: Waltham Fields, Waltham, MA
Mulberries: Waltham, MA
Goat cheese: Westfield Farm, Hubbardston, MA
Pork chops: Chestnut Farms, Hardwick, MA

Comments

[Laura T.]

Oh, I'm jealous of you finding mulberries in MA. I'm always hopeful local farms will offer them during the summer months, but I only ever find the the trio of strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries (tasty, yes, but variety is nice too)

[melch]

I was pretty excited about the prospect of pictures of mulberry salad. That looks delicious!

[Cindy]

We did a strawberry-toasted pecan-chicken salad thing a couple weeks ago. Maybe there was goat cheese too. It's a dim but very fond food memory.

[Yet Another Pam]

Mulberries taste incredible, but the fruits are soft and mush easily. That's why you have to forage, or grow your own. If you can grow black raspberries, you can plant a mulberry bush.

I planted one last year, and it's fruiting. Not a lot, but they taste soo good.

[A Plum By Any Other Name]

One of my co-workers has a huge mulberry bush and she is struggling with harvesting the berries. I've heard you can put some mesh netting down and shake the branches. Any other ideas?

Also, fabulous news about growing mulberry bushes ... I just planted a blackberry bush this year and have actual BERRIES. Perhaps the mulberry will be my next experiment.

Thanks!