Purple Pavement

It is easy to forget, living in some cities, about the life of plants. L.A., for example, is nearly unbroken concrete from the sea to the spot where the vast, inland suburbs finally break up and dissolve back into the great desert the whole thing is built on. There is, to be fair, an occasional palm tree, and the odd patch of lawn, but in general, green space is hard to come by. Apart from the odd rosemary hedge, a few bulbs of wild fennel in a vacant lot, and one avocado tree, I can't remember seeing much in the way of edible plants growing in Los Angeles. Even here in Sydney, a city not without it's own urban sprawl, it is easy to forget about the things which grow. To be completely honest, Sydney is a beautiful city, full of parks, roads lined with giant trees, carefully landscaped and gardened median strips. There is plenty of green. It's just easy to overlook when you are navigating traffic, looking for your turn, or trying to flag down a bus. It's easy, in other words, to become distracted.

That is, until someone points out purple pavement.



There are tricks you learn when you are an urban forager like myself; methods for discovering where you might find edible plants in your neighborhood. I have become obsessed with flowering plants, as flowers mean fruit. One simply has to either recognize leaves or keep coming back to see if anything delicious is going to grow. Conversely, and perhaps counterintuitively, a great deal of my searching for free food finds me staring at the ground. I'm not necessarily looking for herbs and mushrooms, but for evidence of things I might eat in the plants above. I'm seeking prune pits which tell me the nearby tree will fruit next year. I'm looking for any evidence: rotten acorns, dessicated berries, fermenting fruit cores. All of these are instant indicators that edibles grow in the immediate vicinity.

One other indicator, which I often fail to notice, is the color of the pavement. Fallen fruit, you see, is often removed – by animals or obsessively tidy residents – leaving little physical evidence. It takes someone with an eye for color to catch the obvious signs I sometimes miss.

Which, more or less, is what happened to me just the other day. When my wife pointed out that the mulberry trees in my neighborhood were fruiting.



Mulberries are a member of a family of tropical and subtropical flowering plants that includes the breadfruit, figs, and mulberries. There are three varieties of mulberry: red, black, and white. Red mulberries are native to the southern parts of North America and both the black and white Mulberry varieties are native to Southeastern Asia. Famously the silk worm, from who's cocoon silk thread is produced, eats only mulberry leaves, preferring those of the white mulberry. Silk worms are considered domesticated, they cannot breed in the wild. This domestication began at least 5000 years ago in China, implying that the cultivation of mulberry trees far predates this. The tree is ideal for cultivation, it grows quickly and produces an abundance of berries. The fruits resemble elongated blackberries, are deeply sweet and slightly tangy, and drop readily from the tree when ripe.

And the delicious, black, little berries stain both the pavement and your hands a special shade of crushed purple. It's a fruit thief's tattoo.



Mulberry Cobbler

Why cobbler? Because I've been craving cobbler of just about any sort, and picking free mulberries seemed like just as good a reason as any.

2-3 c mulberries, stems removed
60g brown sugar
1/8 tsp cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
½ lemon, juice
1 tsp corn starch
1 Tbsp berry liqueur (optional)

Mix all the above ingredients and allow to stand for half an hour at room temperature. Transfer to a baking dish large enough to hold double the volume of the berry mix. Spread into an even layer.

125g flour
60g white sugar
60g brown sugar
1tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
100g unsalted butter, cold
60ml boiling water

Preheat you oven to 200ºC. Mix the dry ingredients together. Using you fingers or a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until the mix resembles bread crumbs. Add the boiling water and mix until just combined. Pour or spoon the batter over the berries. Sprinkle the top with a tablespoon of extra sugar and bake (use a baking sheet underneath, as this is likely to bubble over) until the top is deeply golden and the berries are bubbling through – about 30 min. Remove from the oven and serve either warm or at room temperature with cream or ice cream.