Clove currants, better than blueberries or Saskatoon/service berries!
I woke up this morning remembering something I had totally forgotten about. Something in my sleep might have triggered this memory I am not sure. It was so hazy and fleeting I had to call my parents to make sure I was not making this up.
I was probably around 9, a couple of years after my family had immigrated to Canada from France. It was a beautiful warm autumn day, the sunlight soft, the trees still green but on the cusp of turning colours, my family went to G. Ross Lord park, near Dufferin and Finch. My uncle, who had immigrated to Canada a bit sooner than us with his family from Vietnam, knew of a ‘wild’ pear trees in the park and had recommended we go. So we did. My brother ran around and raced between the trees, and we picked the green unripened pears. I remember my dad giving me a boost, lifting me up, so that I could reach and get to the fruit up on a tall branch.
I also remember one summer when Co Hang used to take my brother, my cousins and I to the library in the Jane and Finch area, and how behind the public library building, there would be wild raspberries bushes growing in the foreground. We’d pick a few of the ripe and fragrant berries as a treat. I remember going back, a few years later, and not being able to find these bushes or fruit.
And so it goes that I remember years ago taking a short cut to the beach in the Côte D’Azur, south of France, with my cousin Denis, and sucking on the ends of these white flowers freshly picked from vines on a climbing fence. The floral nectar tasted sweet. Denis would also pick shellfish from the sea, small sea snails, and eat them raw to gross me out. We’d see discarded empty sea urchin spiny shells, the flesh having been consumed illegally, by passer-bys. We’d see sea urchins in rock crevices, waves of sea water, keeping them wet, but respectfully chose to abide by the law.
Another memory I have of living in France, is of going on a hike in a forest in our town with my class at the age of 5, and picking chestnuts off the forest floor. We took them back to school and the teacher roasted them for us to eat. To this day I still think they were the best chestnuts I’ve ever consumed.
I also have a memory of going to Cedar Glen and eating these fuzzy red sour berries which came in huge clusters in shrubs. Someone had handed to me the small fuzz balls and told me to chew on them to get to the flesh inside, which were tart. It was only years later, recently in fact, that I learned that the “berries” were sumach (or sumac) and harvested into a middle eastern spice that can be found in za’atar, a delicious spice mixture that I love to bake onto flatbread.
Essentially these memories and experiences only confirm to me that there are many public found food procurement opportunities in urban and rural settings, and while many people in the city often indulge in these practices without fanfare, I am not sure how many don’t. Found food projects, such as the Fallen Fruit project in Los Angeles, are quite excellent and exciting because while the idea of being able to find food sources in urban settings is nothing new, they may inform people who have not had the opportunity to pick for whatever reason. There are numerous unofficial public food sources in cities, villages and towns, and while overall I see the benefits of “officiating” and mapping such sites, I can’t help but also think there’s a certain appeal to keeping them unofficial and on a need to know basis, for people to sporadically come upon some delicious treat on their own.
(Alternatively, although not quite found food as I envision, Not Far From the Tree in Toronto has been facilitating group pickings from fruit tree owners who have more growing on their property than they can consume. One of the best things about the organization is that a certain portion is donated to neighbouring community agencies, as well as the volunteer pickers and homeowner getting a share.)