Yesterday Big Brother and I set out for the afternoon in search of the last of the elderberries. I always enjoy our foraging outings, my Big Brother is about the only other person I know with the same level of enthusiasm I have for wild crafting, and with our combined knowledge we make a pretty darn good team. Big Brother also doesn’t have a wimpy bone in his body, and knows that sometimes treasure is over yonder through that bramble patch and the easiest way there is straight through. But that’s my Big Brother – he’s been breaking trail for me, in more ways than one, since I was old enough to follow.
Driving around yesterday we ended up doing a lot of visiting which, if you’ve never experienced it, is a most pleasant way to spend an afternoon when you live in the country. Like Big Brother said “You see how easy it is to get accidentally drunk?” 🙂 (Don’t worry, we were fine to drive). With a storm rolling in and some good leads we set off to get serious about our foraging, only to find that the elderberries have been picked clean. Let this be a lesson: do not dilly-dally when it comes to elderberries. The birds won’t wait and neither should you. We did score in some other areas, and I am completely stoked with our found treasures.
Our first haul wasn’t really foraged as salvaged. We got these apples at our cousin’s place. He has a lot of old apple trees that he does nothing with, and most of these I just picked up off the ground. The rest I picked standing in the back of Big Brother’s truck. They are beauties, and there’s plenty more if I want them.
Our second haul came from an old wild apple tree that Big Brother calls “the good apple”. These are small and beat up, but sweet enough to eat when most wild apples just make you pucker up and give you the…well you know.
Just a stone’s throw away from the good apple we found a wild pear tree covered with these nice little pears. Actually it was hard to miss, the thing is just loaded! I had run out of bags by this time, so I’ll be going back to load up on these little gems. Not sure what I’m going to do with them right now, though. Is pear sauce any good? I’m open to suggestions.
Finally, there’s these babies. At one point these were cultivated grapes planted by a neighbour, but they’ve run wild and there were cluster after cluster of them. We left them for the time being, Big Brother and a friend are going to make wine from them.
All in all we didn’t do so much wild crafting as salvaging from days gone by, as even the wild apples and pears were most likely cultivated at some point. The fence rows of old farming communities like ours are filled with such things, planted and forgotten as the years roll on. I for one don’t mind reclaiming some of it. Free bushel of apples? Don’t mind if I do. 🙂
Loved the post, great haul and adore those pears you lucky girl! Canned pears are my personal favorite but yes you can make pear sauce, or pear butter.. I like to put a little ginger in mine, just yum!
Ooh, now there’s an idea! Spicey pear butter..mmmmm. You wouldn’t have a recipe, would you? It’s too bad you don’t live around here, there’s bushels of them on the tree.
No real Recipe, Core Pears, cut up and simmer in water, with a some ginger slices in it, when cooked soft, I blend it, then measure it out, check how naturally sweet, which adjusts the amount of sugar used and simmer down till its a butter, and can and water bath for ten min.
I would snag some if I lived closer 🙂 but alas, I have not found wild or free pears in my area.
Thanks for the directions, I’m so excited to try this!!
Hi Daisy, while poking around (looking for info on Sheckel Pears) I came across the suggestion that this site might have some pear recipes. (Let me know what you think ‘k? I haven’t had the time to check it out myself yet.)
Oops, sorry! http://www.foodinjars.com/
Hi Deb, I am familiar with the site, but don’t know if it would have what you are looking for since I personally have done very little with pears myself (Mr. S is the pear fan, and he likes them just the way nature provides them). Good luck in your search and sorry I couldn’t be more of a help.
That’s okay, there are pear recipes, some even mention the Sheckel Pears that Xprimentl mentions a little further down in the comments here. : )
I’ll for sure be trying out her recent (Blood Orange) Marmalade Recipe very soon.
Hey Daisy, that’s quite the load for one day’s foraging! I’ve got some suggestions/cautions for you, most important first…
Be sure to boil those groundfall apples – gotta be sure to kill off any bacterial hitchhikers (because all kinds of animals are attracted to free food, e-coli is a possibility, right?)
If those are Concord grapes you might like them better for juice/jam/jelly. :(I’ve been told they’re not so great for wine.)
Finally, about those wild apples that gave you the skitters? If they’re that sour they’re either a later variety and just not ripe enough OR originally intended for cider-making. Speaking of which, did you know that each family farm grew their own selection of apples for a custom blended cider?
When I was a kid there used to be a great orchard, full of heritage apples, in the field next to ours. It was illegally bulldozed in the early 90’s to prepare for a housing development which eventually fell through, but too late for those irreplaceable old trees!
P. S. Everyone in this normally quiet, rural neighbourhood was so pissed they raised a hugely expensive OMB/court battle that eventually (like a decade later!) resulted in the Ontario Government’s “Oak Ridges Moraine Act” (which supposedly controls unnecessary conversion of rural/agricultural property for housing development on the Moraine.) Paradoxically that same housing development that caused so much trouble – because it was eventually given approval to proceed by the OMB in 1992 (quelle surprise!) – has recently been resurrected by another developer who intends to carry on almost 20 years later with that same unnecessary development on a still-disputed, at least partially on/adjacent to environmentally protected wetland.
Hi Deb! Thanks for the good advice. I’m going to sauce the apples, so they will be good and sterilized once I’m done with them. As for the grapes, well, I would love to make jelly but Big Brother gets his share of the haul too and he’s got his heart set on trying out wine making. If there’s any left over you can bet your booties I’ll be snagging them. 🙂 You’re probably right about the apples, I’ve often wondered as to why the sour ones ended up being the tough old timers. That’s a shame about the trees in your neighbourhood, and all the development. I’m afraid southern Ontario will eventually be just one big urban jungle.
Well see, the problem is that in the immediate “neighbourhood” that we’re talking about is/was made up of my parent’s and seven surrounding farms, plus roughly ten single family homes. That’s the whole point of the disagreement… We’re talking ‘way out in the country here, not some suburb snuggled up to the GTO’s teat.
Wild pear screams “Perry!” That looks like a Seckel, however. If it’s juicy and sweet…
Thanks for the idea on what kind of pear they could be! It’s sort of like playing detective with these old timers.