Thursday, June 8, 2023

A fruity bouquet

Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.
~Walter Scott


Our neighborhood deer have been enjoying mulberry season. Wineberry season is coming right up. Although the animals are having fun, we aren't used to eating fruit that we don't find in the store. How many fruits are "out of fashion"? You can tell in Abraham Gibbens' still life that the strawberries he ate in the 1600s were wild, much smaller than the ones we buy today. Also, he had gooseberries, another neglected fruit. For Art Thursday, less common fruit:

Frutas do Conde (Annona/Sweetsop)
Agostinho José da Mota

Loquats and Mountain Bird
Unknown
Under the Rowan Tree Janis Rozentāls

Still Life with Strawberries, Cherries and Gooseberries
Abraham Gibbens (fl. 1629–1635)

Marvelous, bird and pomegranate
Carlos Alberto Fernández

Hawaiian Breadfruit
by Persis Goodale Thurston Taylor, c. 1890

How to harvest wild berries: Foraging for beginners (I learned something here about false strawberries)
A beginner's guide to summer foraging

1 comment:

HWY said...

Loved the painting Marvelous, bird and pomegranate.

Interesting web site about foraging fruit. We have wild strawberries around our place, and they are indeed bland and tasteless!

Also interesting was the advice about rubbing a bit of fruit on your arm to see if you're allergic (which means the fruit is toxic).