It’s the time of year when nature is the richest in forest and wild fruits, holding enormous benefits in a form of nutrients and vitamins. The best part is, these things are free of charge yet people stay away often from having themselves educated enough to pick the right fruit and DIY.
I was lucky myself to learn plenty about plants due to my childhood’s curiosity and exploration until this day. I pass it over to my 6yo son at the moment and he expresses similar curiosity, which makes me proud and happy.
Black Elderberry is common in Europe and many other geolocations which makes it a perfect candidate at fall to collect from wild areas, undistracted by public roads and ripe enough to make decent flu protection and cure for winter.
While raw fruits, small berries, shouldn’t be eaten in quantities, couple of them cause no effect so don’t worry that you’ll get poisoned or anything like that. It is true that they contain substances turning into cyan-driven results and in big quantities, raw, cause unpleasant effect loke diaorrhea, vertigo or vomitting. You need to treat them with heat, which destroys bindings and renders all potentially toxic substances, harmless, while leaving plenty of miraculous gifts inside.
Key points:
– collect and prepare only black, ripe berries
– wash them up in cold water
– drop into a pan and squash as much as you can
– depends on quantity of berries, add about 1/3 to 1/2 equivalent of sugar and the same of water
– bring the whole thing just about to boil and immediately lower the heat to about 2-3 of 6 grades (or equivalent)
– let it run like that for approx. 15-20 min and make sure it’s not boiling or too hot to evaporate the water too much and stir it from time to time
– use cheesecloth or even a thin cloth to squeeze the pulp and get the syrup off it to one vessel, then put the pulp into other
Syrup can be used as a flu medicine and prevention in a form of 1-2 spoons 2-3 times a day.
Pulp is great to be used for smoothies (I use 1-2 spoons per 0.5-1 L of smoothie, and/or as a spread on anything you like marmalada/jam on 😉
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