Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 9 on 20/7/2003.

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Summer fruit fantastic

SUE LAWRENCE EXPLAINS HOW SHE GAINED HARD-EARNED EXPERIENCE “GOING TO THE BERRIES”, AND PROVIDES SOME STUNNING BERRY-INSPIRED RECIPES

My thoughts on tasting the first raspberry of the season are not of melba sauce, clotted cream or jam, but of luggies, dreels and fingernails dyed red. For I was one of that happy band of berry-pickers who were paid a paltry sum of money to pick berries all day long in sun, rain or wind, for the month of July. In Angus and Perthshire, summer holidays and berries were inextricably linked.

Hordes of schoolchildren would walk, cycle or catch a bus to “go to the berries”. It was a way of life, and the irritating scratches and redstained t-shirts were part and parcel.

On arrival at the fruit farm, we would collect our buckets (called luggies) and tie them round our waists.

Then we would be dispatched to the fields – mainly raspberry fields, but if you were unlucky, it was off on the back of a tractor over bumpy terrain to the blackcurrant bushes.

Apart from their inky black stains, they were impossible to pick without squashing into jam between eager fists.

Gooseberries were also unpopular as they were prickly and tasted sour. No, best of all were raspberries, as your back didn’t ache as it did with strawberries.

You were sheltered from the worst of the weather by the high leafy canes. And because of the length of the rows (dreels) you could have meaningless conversations with your fellow pickers if the appeal of devouring more forbidden fruit began to pall.

The trouble with raspberries was that they tasted so good, most of the ones I picked never made it into my luggie. My.....

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By Sue Lawrence

Section : Scottish Food

Page number : 62