Taste the Local Raspberries!

Jam,wine or Just off the Vine, photo by taterfalls.

According to ancient Greek myth, all raspberries were once white. But one day, when the god Jupiter was in an angry rage, the Nymph Ida picked some wild raspberries to calm him. While she was picking the berries, she pricked her finger on the thorns of a raspberry bush. Legend states that from then on, her blood stained all raspberries a bright red color.

That’s just one of the many “drupelets” of information about raspberries available in Ready to Pick: Raspberries from Taste the Local Difference: everything from tips that raspberries are best picked in the morning and won’t ripen after picking to the fact that raspberries are rich in Vitamin C, antioxidants and ellagic acid (an anti-carcinogenic compound) to an explanation that raspberries are actually a cluster of many small individual fruits, called drupelets, each containing its own seed.

Like all the others in their weekly Ready to Pick series, it also includes links to Northern Michigan farms & farm markets with raspberries, a profile of the famed Tapawingo restaurant in Ellsworth and recipes for Raspberry and Lemon Thyme Ice, Tapawingo’s Raspberry-Chocolate Tart in Almond Pastry and Raspberry Pancakes. (I think I better go get breakfast now).

Tate says that these raspberries were sooo good, so I’m sure you can be forgiven if your raspberries never make it home from picking!