A blackberry cobbler has to be the most delicious creation that ever came into contact with human taste buds.
I can’t remember the first time one touched mine, but I know it was love at first bite.
When the last of June and first of July, of my childhood rolled around, I instinctively knew that a cobbler would appear from out of the oven, a generous portion placed in a bowl, and then covered with thick, fresh cream skimmed off the top of the milk made by our Jersey cow earlier that morning. There was nothing better.
Unfortunately, when I reached the age of 6 or so, I was expected to go along with my parents to the blackberry patch to help pick the delectable fruits.
These blackberry bushes were most usually found in an old fence row or along the edge of the woods, which also produced an abundant crop of ticks and chiggers that were roughly the same size as the berries. It was then, that I understood why blackberries tasted so good; any food that creates that much pleasure has to be accompanied by an equal or greater amount of pain and misery.
The morning after a “berry-picking” would usually find my body looking like it had been run through the de-feathering machine at a poultry processing plant. All the scratching and clawing of the tick bites had left my legs, arms, and other assorted appendages, as raw and red as an unripened blackberry. Home remedies to rid my body of any remaining chiggers would include alternating applications of coal oil, turpentine, rubbing alcohol, and even lard as a last desperate attempt to kill the vermin that were determined to stay attached. A blow-torch couldn’t have burned my skin any hotter than the home remedies – and probably wouldn’t have gotten rid of the parasites any better. No matter what was used, I still itched…and scratched…for several more days. But, the eventual payoff, in the form of that blackberry cobbler, was still wonderful.
I was thinking about all this last week, when my wife and I went to a neighbor’s U-pick blackberry operation about 4 miles from our farm. There, we picked two gallons of beautiful berries in about 20 minutes, from bushes that didn’t have a thorn on them. The vines were all attached to trellises in neat rows that allowed us to pick from a standing position the whole time, and the areas between the rows were mowed like a lawn and, evidently, treated with something that deters ticks and chiggers, because I didn’t get a single critter on me.
Back at home, Judy baked a delicious blackberry cobbler that was every bit as good as the ones I remembered from my childhood. As we both sat down, and began to devour the steaming treat, Judy asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing, why?”
“You’re scratching between every bite.”
“Just blackberry flashbacks.”
