OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. This week she offers a recipe for blackberry cobbler with an oat scone topping.
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Blackberries: an essential flavor of summer in the Pacific Northwest — but one that demands a blood sacrifice. Or does it? While beloved berry specialist (and OSU plant breeder) Bernadine Strik one eschewed thornless Chester blackberries as flavorless, they’re one of the most prolific plants in the “Superabundant” garden, producing copious large, sweet fruits with flavor that is just fine, thank you very much. And you have to admit, it’s pretty nice to not have to don leather gauntlets to pick them. Which plant breeder developed freestone peaches, the russet potato, as well as the first thornless blackberries *AND much-maligned Himalayan blackberries? Read on to find out!
Celebrating Indigenous foods, Oregon’s new Food and Beverage Council and good things in markets, gardens and kitchens
Huckleberry season begins in the Northwest
Our friends at Northwest Public Broadcasting shared the news that mountain meadows are beginning to teem with native huckleberries — a sacred first fruit picked, preserved and eaten by Indigenous Northwesterners for millennia. If you’re interested in taking some for your own kitchen, you’ll need to follow the rules of your local ranger station (please note that commercial harvest is illegal in the Mount Hood National Forest but collecting wild foods for personal use no longer requires a permit).
Pacific lamprey on the decline
Like the huckleberry (and salmon and sturgeon), the jawless, eely fish that have navigated Northwest waters for 340 million years are a culturally important first food for our region’s Indigenous people — but their populations have been on a steady decline. What does this mean for the communities who’ve come to Willamette Falls to harvest lamprey since time immemorial? OPB’s Julia Boboc spoke with tribal members to learn more about the “grandparents of the river.”
New commission supports Oregon’s food producers
The Portland Business Journal reported that using the growth of Oregon’s superconductor businesses as an example, the newly formed Oregon Food and Beverage Council is hoping to use federal funding in not just promoting Oregon’s food and drink businesses on a global scale, but helping them grow. The commission recognizes the value of these businesses around the state in building rural job growth that far outpaces national growth (and getting tastier products into the world). Its first official report is expected this fall.
Good things in markets
As we approach summer’s midpoint (Aug. 6), there’s just too much superabundance to comprehensively report — greens, berries, peaches, melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash and the season’s first chanterelles and lobster mushrooms are all providing inspiration beyond measure.
We heard from a few folks last week that albacore tuna is hard to find (it’s still pretty early in the season) but better-stocked seafood markets should have you covered if you can’t make it out to the coast to buy directly from fishers.
In the ‘Superabundant’ garden this week
Even after being pruned and surviving a heat wave, the golden raspberries are like “don’t call it a comeback” and have sent out a few sturdy new floricanes laden with flower buds. Guess there’s going to be another round!
The peach tree has been fully harvested, and the Chester blackberries are going strong, giving about a quart a day of giant fruit. The fig tree is still putting out a steady stream of its giant breba crop, but should hopefully be wrapping up soon and focusing on ripening this year’s crop. The hobak (Korean zucchini) is steadily growing up its trellis and producing blooms and fruit, and some of the early heirloom beans (‘Yellow Eye’ in particular) have already given a couple pods’ worth of dry beans.
The common purslane and lamb’s quarters (a spinach relative) that’ve been volunteering in various spots around the raised beds are being plucked for salads, sandwiches and even cold borscht. Coincidentally, purslane and lamb’s quarters also have porcine common names — hogweed and pigweed, respectively.
Feeling bogged down by your own garden’s superabundance? Send an email to superabundant@opb.org and we’ll help you out with some fresh ideas to stoke your creativity. We might even shout you out in the newsletter!
Lately, in the ‘Superabundant’ kitchen
✨ The first 15 pounds of peaches were simmered down to a thick spread, sweetened with maple sugar and flavored with a whisper of nutmeg and saffron, yielding about 10 half-pints of silky preserves.
✨ Some of the second peach harvest went into a frangipane sheet cake to share with some OPB coworkers. You can find the recipe in one of last summer’s newsletters. (The rest will be turned to puree for making ice cream and bellinis.)
✨ Since the backyard chickens have been laying a ton, we used up a few eggs to make a vegetable frittata with white cheddar and summer squash, chives and tomato from the garden. It was a lovely brinner with sausage balls, air-fried potatoes and toasted como with lots of butter and loganberry jam.
Recipe: Blackberry cobbler with oat scone topping
You can use any fresh or frozen blackberry variety you like for this cobbler — even the vicious Himalayan blackberries growing in the alleys, hedgerows and natural areas across the Northwest
Heather Arndt Anderson / OPB
While hobby horticulturist (and Santa Cruz, California, Superior Court judge) James Logan was messing around in his backyard in the 1880s, accidentally inventing the berry that would take his name, the prolific plant breeder Luther Burbank had been busy blowing minds with the hundreds of varieties of plants he had been inventing — using what appeared to be nothing more than intuition and good vibes.
He invented the russet potato with the sole intent of solving the Irish potato famine. He came up with the easy-to-process freestone July Elberta peach, elephant garlic and many, many berries, all without recording notes on his work (to the consternation of botanists wishing to reproduce his results). The scientific method wasn’t really his cup of tea. He was just happier out in the garden.
Of course, the road to hell is often paved with good intentions, and one of his most successful creations would go on to become the scourge of Pacific Northwest weed managers: Himalayan blackberry, developed from seeds Burbank received in the mail from India. Fortunately, he also developed three different thornless blackberries in his day (“Burbank Thornless,” “Snowbank,” and “Phenomenal”). Though they aren’t in commercial production, the cultivars are now safely stored in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis.
You can use any fresh or frozen blackberry variety you like for this cobbler — even the vicious Himalayan blackberries growing in the alleys, hedgerows and natural areas across the Northwest will do, as long as you’re willing to bleed a little. Serves 6-8.
Portions of this recipe’s headnotes were adapted from Heather Arndt Anderson’s “Berries: A Global History” (Reaktion Books, 2018)
Ingredients
5 cups fresh or frozen blackberries (if you’re using frozen, thaw first but don’t strain the juice)
1 ½ cups sugar, divided
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon cardamom
Pinch of salt
¾ cup rolled oats
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 egg, lightly beaten
½ cup buttermilk
Sparkling sugar for topping (optional)
Instructions
- Combine the blackberries and ½ cup of the sugar in a bowl, stirring to evenly coat the fruit. Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F and butter a 9-inch pie dish or 2-quart baking dish.
- In a large bowl, mix together the flour, remaining sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, salt and oats.
- In a separate bowl, mix the butter, egg and buttermilk until creamy and thoroughly combined. Make a well in the center of the flour-oat mixture and stir in the buttermilk mixture until just combined.
- Pour the sugared blackberries into the prepared baking dish and spoon the scone batter onto the berries. Sprinkle with sparkling sugar (if using) and bake until the topping is golden brown and baked through, about 30-35 minutes.
- Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or Greek yogurt.