Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Would you eat it?

Last year I went nuts over blackberries. I mean, "leave work early, grab the biggest tupperware tub you can find and go forage in Magnolia Park for an hour" nuts. It began with a batch of blackberry ice cream based on a to-die-for recipe from the fabulous David Liebowitz' book, The Perfect Scoop. Seriously, to-die-for. Those berries don't pick themselves and I've got four quart-size freezer bags to prove my love. So later, in comparing notes on my unbelievable ice cream, a friend off-handedly remarked that there were plenty of blackberries growing at the local dump.

Hm. The dump you say?

Said friend (it shall be noted, a semi-professional bachelor complete with microwaveable pretzels and instant oatmeal) managed soon thereafter to bake a blackberry pie made with the aforementioned dump berries. Now I've eaten a lot of questionable things in my life... most of them far beyond their expiration date but there are plenty of places i wouldn't pick a berry from and the dump may well be one of them.

For instance, on my walk home from work, just past the exit from the highway there's a patch of blackberry bushes that thrives happily with no care or attention whatsoever. Its long prickly branches hang lazily over the sidewalk, dangling lip-smacking blackberries by the handful to any passerby. But would I eat those berries? Hells no. Those things are filled with the exhaust of every car that pauses at the crosswalk... It would be like licking the inside of a tailpipe.

So am I being ridiculous... would you eat dumpberry pie?

1 comment:

Schmancy said...

as long as that shit's clean. yes?