Wild blackberries

At this time of year, it is especially rewarding to go on our after-dinner walk. The blackberries have arrived, and they are ripe and deeply black.

I guess through luck or coincidence — it had nothing to with some new, Napoleonic planting scheme of Papa's, I swear — the fields of La Quieze are lined with blackberries.

I am talking about a bonanza here.

The Eldorado.

In some places, when you stop along the paths, you discover more berries in front of you than you could eat in a day.

The boys are experts at picking, although Gabriel needs help because after he picks the lower rungs clean, he cannot reach the berries above. Come to think of it, I believe this is the only time in his life he asked anybody for help, insisting as he does on accomplishing all things independantly.

Maxime gladly supplies Gabriel's hands with as many as Gabriel can hold. Maxime likes to find the really big ones, and give them to his brother, which makes Gabriel's little hands fill up in no time.

"Gabriel! Here is a huge one!" Maxime exclaims, with the kindly meant, slightly exaggerated enthusiasm reserved particularly for little children.

Then there is my dear wife, Natalya. Now she likes blackberries, too. Of this there can be little doubt.

In fact, growing up in Khazakstan, the land of the hands-down best fruit I have ever tasted, rendering all others, including French fruit, bland and anaemic in comparison, Natalya used to eat blackberries as a child in a very, very special way.

This dubious tradition has now been passed on to my two sons, over my vociferous protest.

The tradition goes like this:

You gather as many blackberries as you can. Objective: to fill your hands to overflowing.

You cradle the berries carefully in front of you, at chin-level, to make sure you don't lose any.

You take a deep breath.

You rush your hands to your mouth, and eat all the berries — every last one — in a single go.

Can I be frank here? I was aghast when I saw Maxime do it the first time, on an innocent, purportedly harmless walk at Sereville.

What are you doing? You can't eat them like that!" I professed, from my height as self-appointed, worldwide arbiter of eating etiquette.

Maxime: "Mama taught me to do it like this."

I was stunned into silence. Natalya was not on the walk with us that day, so I was stuck, alone with the concept. After a pause to allow hyperventilation to subside, I rasped:

"Mama taught you that?"

"Yes, Papa." Maxime says with his matter-of-fact, vaguely weary of Papa's etiquette mania, voice.

When we returned from our walk, to the kitchen, I demanded of Natalya to explain why on earth she would teach Maxime to eat so many berries precipitously at once. I was not expecting much in the way of a logical or coherent answer, since such a pratice is prima facie proof of both an erroneous upbringing and a flaunting disregard for personal safety.

I was expecting a reply along the lines of: "That's just how we kids did it."

But the answer was altogether different, and shocking. It was:

"That was how my father taught me to do it."

"Your FATHER taught you this?"

"Yes," Natalya says cooly, without offering any explanation whatever for this monumental parental miscalculation.

"Why on earth did he teach you that? You could choke to death."

"'Because', he said, 'you will never forget it.'"

In the intervening years, I have gotten somewhat used to this frightful and dangerous Eastern custom. Not that I have ever done it myself. Although just today I was finally cornered by all and sundry, including little Gabriel who was especially forthright in his demand of assurances, that indeed in the near future I must demonstrate eating all the berries at once for them.

Today, I had the camera with me, so I thought to get on film Natalya's explanation. She was a little reluctant to share it, but she did. It is the final video clip below.