American Beautyberry, originally uploaded by pellaea.
I blame you.
The American Beautyberries have come into…berry? Seed? Bloom? And I decided it would be AWESOME to venture out to the local berry picking haunts and pick some. Ever since the blogosphere ignited with stories of Freezer Jam and photos of perfectly ripened berries last month…I’ve been itching to try a new recipe I found for these gorgeous wild berries in our area (reprinted below). And now they were here! So I hit the tubes to find out how much I would need (1.5 quarts) along with a few other odd bits of information I didn’t think relevant at the time and off we went.
Mutant, Crazy Blood Sucking Zombies
So we got to the place, shut off the car and ventured off…all lathered in Skin So Soft and armed with baggies. To my dismay, the berries still weren’t completely ripe. So I snatched a cutting to see if I could grow it (yay foldable embroidery scissors…perfect for sneaky snipping) picked a few palmetto berries from a near by palm and headed back to the car. RAN back to the car make that. Sorry avon but your skin so soft might work on those Northern Skeeters, but we have super skeeters here. Mutant, crazy, super skeeters that followed us into the car.
After swatting the dozen that snuck into the closed car, D dug out the keys. Usually this is the point where the key…in the ignition starts the car. Ckick, click, click, click is NOT the sound of a car starting. The car wasn’t starting. Sitting in the middle of Mosquito Forest, in a dark car with no air conditioning, we realized the battery was dead. It was like a bad horror move…with ittsy-bittsy tiny Romero zombies with wings.
Existential Conversations
Iz and I sat in the car, trading the increasing temperatures for the potential West Nile virus as D waited for our designated jumper to arrive. Finally, soaking wet and on the verge of heat stroke I realized something I had read online today. American Beautyberries are a natural insect repellent. But which part? I couldn’t remember. Anything was better than this, so I hopped out of the car, grabbed a few handfuls of the berries and smooshed them into the baby after hesitating a second to convince myself they were safe:
Bad S: birds eat them…
Good S: but birds get drunk on fermented fruit too.
Bad S: Yeah, on college campuses. Everyone gets drunk in college.
Good S: Good point. Besides, the whole jelly thing. And you ate them a few times and didn’t get sick
So on to the smooshing.
Iz looked at me shocked. Shocked gave way to WTF which eventually gave way to a giant smile and feet flailing. After rubbing ourselves down with tiny purple balls we sat in the shade and waited. The mosquitoes never came. The berries actually worked. American Beautyberries are an excellent all natural insect repellent, and they smell great too! Now I might have used the wrong part of the plant, you might be sitting out there going “your doing it wrong”. But it worked…who knew?
American BeautyBerry Jelly
Found via Biosphere Buzz
via Florida’s Incredible Wild Edibles
1 ½ qts. of beautyberries, washed
2 qts. water
Boil 20 minutes and strain to make infusion
Use 3 cups of the infusion, bring to boil, add 1 enve-
lope Sure-Jell and 4 ½ cups sugar. Bring to second boil
and boil 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand until
foam forms. Skim off foam, pour into sterilized jars, cap.
P.S. Check out this recipe for Beautyberrie Jelly Rolls…nom.