We’ve been up the Mulberry Bush, not around it, to gather the massive harvest of berries from a tree that’s at least 150 years old. Its limbs languidly sprawl all over the place, like an Old Etonian on a sofa, and under the canopy of leaves the berries are fruiting heavily.
For those who only know Mulberry as a designer shop, the Mulberry tree may need some explanation. A very widespread plant in Australia, its leaves are bizarrely the only food a silkworm will eat. Mulberry trees originally came to the UK when James I attempted to establish silk production in England by planting 100000 mulberry trees near to Hampton Court Palace
They certainly are to Sam, who runs Sam’s Brasserie in Chiswick. As he and his chef rummage about in the tree filling plastic boxes as fast as they can, he tells us he will quickly getting the berries back to base and into the kitchen.’I’m thinking a kind of Bakewell Tart’, he says indistinctly from somewhere over our heads.
Of course chefs don’t normally go foraging in private gardens. Sam’s allowed to do it thanks to the efforts of Sarah Cruz who is with us today. Her project, which she runs together with Karen Liebreich, is called Abundance and it’s all about selling the surplus fruit produced in Chiswick gardens to restaurants and shops. The profit made then goes to local schools.
And it is delicious. The Mulberry fruit looks like an oversized raspberry the size of a man’s thumb and the ripest ones have an incredible sweetness, as well as a light, almost apple-like, acidity. We can’t stop eating them as we go, but with thousands of berries already ripe and more to come, we barely dent what’s available.
‘We’ll be back for more,and soon it will be apples and pears and plums too,’says Sarah.’I LOVE plums,’ shouts Sam who’s still up his tree if not out of it. The owner of the house wanders past and Sarah hands him a Mulberry.
Laden with boxes and boxes of fruit, we leave the house. Sam gets on his scooter and promises to send a recipe, Sarah peddles off to the Brasserie with her trailer full of produce. It’s been a berry good morning for everyone.
If you have an abundance of fruit in the Chiswick area, or would like to volunteer to help with picking other peoples’, making jam or helping with school trips, get in touch with Sarah or Karen via the Abundance website.
Eat at Sam’s Brasserie in Chiswick
Berry nice photos by Al Stuart