Mulberries
Mulberries: the backyard berry that fed silkworms, stained Pyramus and Thisbe's tree and named a nursery rhyme, plus how to pick, store and use them.
If you grew up near a mulberry tree, you know the signs: purple fingers, purple mouths, purple footpaths. Mulberries rarely make it to the shops because they're too soft to travel, so most of us meet them in a backyard or a park. That's part of the charm. The same tree has fed silkworms for nearly 5,000 years, stars in a Roman love tragedy and gave English children a song.
Background
Mulberries belong to the genus Morus, with 17 accepted species across warm temperate regions 1. Three matter most in the kitchen. White mulberry (M. alba) comes from China; red mulberry (M. rubra) from eastern North America; black mulberry (M. nigra) from Iran and the Levant 1. The fruit turns from pink to red to dark purple or black, and it's sweetest when fully ripe 1.
Flavour varies a lot. Black mulberries are richly flavoured, while white mulberries are often described as sweet but insipid 23. Some cultivated white mulberries even stay white or pink when ripe 3.
In Australia, black, red and white mulberries are common backyard trees 1. White mulberry is considered an environmental weed in Queensland and New South Wales 1. Australia also has two native plants called "native mulberry", but they belong to entirely different families 1.
As plain nutrition facts, 100 g of raw mulberries is 88% water and about 43 kilocalories, with 44% of the daily value of vitamin C 1.
History
The mulberry's big job was never the fruit. It was the leaves. White mulberry leaves are the food of the silkworm, Bombyx mori, which is even named after the tree 1. People in China began growing mulberries for silkworms more than 4,700 years ago 3.
Chinese legend credits Leizu, wife of the Yellow Emperor, with discovering silk. In one version a cocoon fell into her tea, and the heat loosened a thread so long it stretched across her garden 4. She's said to have asked for a mulberry grove to raise the worms, and she's still honoured as the "Silkworm Mother" 4.
Britain tried to copy the trick and got it wrong. Black mulberries were imported in the 17th century to start a silk industry, but silkworms prefer white mulberry, so the plan failed 2. The trees stayed, and old black mulberries still stand in many British country house gardens 2.
Customs, rules and rituals
- A Roman love story. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, written in 8 AD, Pyramus and Thisbe, two young lovers in Babylon, arrange to meet under a white mulberry tree. Thisbe flees a lioness and drops her cloak; Pyramus finds it bloodied, thinks she's dead and kills himself, and Thisbe follows 5. The gods darken the mulberry's fruit forever in their memory 5. Shakespeare borrowed the story for Romeo and Juliet and sent it up in A Midsummer Night's Dream 5.
- A nursery rhyme. "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" was first recorded by James Orchard Halliwell in the mid-nineteenth century 6. One local historian traces it to Wakefield prison in England, where women prisoners exercised around a mulberry tree 6.
- Syrups and spirits. Because ripe mulberries bruise so easily, many cultures preserve them. In Azerbaijan they're boiled down into a thick syrup called doshab or made into a spirit 3.
Place in human experience
The mulberry tree has clothed emperors and fed children for free. Silk made the tree valuable for thousands of years 3, yet its fruit stayed the people's berry, too fragile to sell far from home 3.
It also stains everything it touches, which is perhaps why storytellers loved it. Ovid needed a fruit that could change colour with grief, and the mulberry already looked the part 5. Van Gogh painted The Mulberry Tree in 1889 1. For most Australians, though, mulberries mean something simpler: a free feast over the back fence.
How to buy, store and use it
Picking. Choose berries that are fully dark (or fully coloured, for white types) and pull away from the stem with almost no effort. Underripe ones are sour. Pick into a shallow container so the bottom layer doesn't crush.
Where to find them. Fresh mulberries rarely reach Coles or Woolworths; their fragile skins make them hard to store and sell 3. Look at farmers' markets and greengrocers when trees are fruiting, or ask a neighbour with a tree. Dried white mulberries are sold in the health food aisle and at bulk food stores.
Storage. Refrigerate unwashed, in a single layer, and eat within a day or two. Rinse just before using. To freeze, spread on a tray, freeze, then bag them.
Using it. Eat them fresh, fold them into muffins, bake them in pies and tarts, or cook them into cordial or jam 1. Juice stains, so protect your bench and clothes.
Swaps. Blackberries are the closest swap in cooking. Raspberries or blueberries work too.
Sources
- "Morus (plant)", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus_(plant)
- "Morus nigra", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus_nigra
- "Morus alba", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus_alba
- "Leizu", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leizu
- "Pyramus and Thisbe", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramus_and_Thisbe
- "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_We_Go_Round_the_Mulberry_Bush