Dewberries like to grow in sunny wastelands and any areas that border between woods, fields, and clearings. Despite being close relatives to blackberries, which grow as an upright cane, dewberry plants grow as a low, spreading groundcover. Though the berries are mainly seen in the spring, the young leaves of the plant can be used year-round. Unbeknownst to most of its critics, the dewberry plant is an important part of the pedigree of many hybrid varieties of berries commercially available today, including boysenberries, Chehalem blackberries, kotataberries, loganberries, marionberries, olallieberries, tayberries, and youngberries. For example, the boysenberry is a cross between a European raspberry, a common blackberry, an American dewberry, and a loganberry, which is itself a hybrid.
The berries of the dewberry plant are most like that of the raspberry, but instead of being red, they are mostly purple to black. Dewberries contain carbohydrates, vitamins A, B, and C, and a small amount of other minerals. Besides eating the berries raw, they can be easily used in the creation of wines, jellies, jams, syrups, pies, cobblers, and of course teas. One cup of dewberries contain 62 calories, 14 grams of carbs (of which 30% is dietary fiber), 2 grams of protein, less than one gram of fat, and about 230 milligrams of Potassium. The same one cup serving meets 6% of the daily amount of vitamin A, 50% of the daily value of vitamin C, 4% of the daily requirement of calcium, and 5% of the daily value of iron.
Besides the berries, a delicious herbal tea can be made from the flowers and or young leaves. Author Mark Vorderbruggen recommends using the young leaves so as not to curtail the plant’s fruit production. He also recommends picking the leaves in the late morning so that the sun will not have had a chance to evaporate volatile flavoring oils contained within the leaves. He further suggests combining dewberry leaves with yaupon holly leaves to create a very tasty and vitamin-rich tea, as yaupon hollies are one of the few native Arkansas plants that can be used as a true coffee substitute because their leaves contain caffeine. To enhance the flavor of the oils, dry the leaves first, or simply dry them to store for later use.
To make dewberry tarts, first collect four cups of dewberries. Then you will need sugar to taste, approximately two-thirds of a cup, and 3 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, one cup of shortening, and seven to eight tablespoons of water to create the tart shells. First sift flour and salt and then cut in the shortening. Add one tablespoon of water at a time, tossing with fork. Then shape this dough into 2 balls, rolling out the dough and cutting out circles that are just big enough to fit into a muffin pan, with this recipe making about 24 muffin-sized tarts. Carefully fit the dough circles into the muffin plan and fill with berries, folding over the edges on top similarly to a pie. Bake for around 35 minutes or until the shell of the pastry is lightly browned.
So remember, try and eat one wild food every day! If you have questions or comments please email [email protected]!