Blackberry Bobby

Anyone who has spent any amount of time in the Pacific Northwest probably knows that we are cursed and blessed by an abundance of wild blackberries. Not the tiny, tart native blackberries, which on our property are sparse, but the introduced Himalayan Blackberries. We are almost as famous for our blackberries and our Rent-A-Goat schemes for getting rid of them as we are for our rain. The Himalayan Blackberries are large and juicy, sweet when they are ripe, and flavored like the sun, the air, and the soil of this place. For me, nothing that grows here is as demonstrative of terroir as blackberries. Their taste speaks to me of August and September on our little farm. This time of year in the region is special for a number of reasons: these are the warmest and driest months and, for reasons I don't completely understand, there are sunsets and sunrises that are without comparison. I can taste all of that in our blackberries.

Now all that being said, the truth is that long before I ever considered growing up and moving here, I fell in love with the flavor of these fruits. As a kid in Ohio, I don't remember being viciously scratched by blackberry brambles. I don't remember the vines coming up in any patch of ground left untended for 5 minutes. I can't recall people bringing in trailer loads of goats to clear abandoned property. But I do remember Blackberry Bobby.

Grandma Wilhelm made Blackberry Bobby and while I don't think I ever talked to her about it even once, I make it too. It is simple, peasant, pioneer food. It is something you make to use up leftover bread and a free crop that you can forage without much effort. It is a sweet, All American version of the Italian dish, Panzanella. Here's how I make it based on my observations of how it tasted when Grandma made it:

In a frying pan, melt a good size piece of butter. For two of us, I might use 2 tablespoons. (My Dad swears that his Mom made it with bacon grease and that's the only way to do. I believe him, but I really can't recall ever tasting bacon in this simple dish.) Throw in some cubed white bread. Tonight it was three slices. In my opinion, the denser and sweeter the bread, the better. Airy sourdough would not cut it in this dish. Give the bread a little fry and then add blackberries, making sure there are enough of them to release juice adequate to soak into and not quite be contained by the bread. For the two of us, I used about a pint of berries. Then sugar. I'm not even going to tell you how much sugar to use. Just keep adding it and tasting until you can imagine being about 10 years old and thinking that this is the BEST dessert ever invented. Cook it long enough to liberate the juices and then serve it hot out of the pan.

In our family, we would eat this with milk poured over. It was probably whole milk until sometime in the 60s when some yahoo convinced the moms of the country that full fat milk was some kind of communist plot and that we all needed an immediate intervention with the skimmed version. Tonight, on our steaming dishes of purple pudding, it was heavy cream. (Its okay, Mom. It wasn't a lot of cream. Just enough to mellow the flavor and cool things off.) It was a clear, crisp memory in a bowl. It was 50 years ago in Grandma's kitchen on a Sunday evening in late summer. Like yesterday.

Just who this Bobby character was is a mystery, but he inspired a fine dessert and a good reason to keep the goats out of the blackberries.