Can Hawthorn Berries Be Crushed – Branches laden with berries almost touching the ground with large swaths of little red dots covering the fences, tangled in the lower branches of oaks and climbing hillsides… Who could resist such easy pickings?
When you can fill a five-gallon bucket in less than 30 minutes, the bait is downright irresistible.
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Can Hawthorn Berries Be Crushed
And there you are, a bucket full of berries and leaves in hand, off to the kitchen and the great hawthorn extravaganza.
Wild Plant Foods Of Britain: Common & Midland Hawthorn (crataegus Monogyna & Crataegus Laevigata)
But before you surprise yourself with spending most of the rest of the week tending to your bounty, here are some quick tricks to make quick work of your harvest and create some tempting and delicious healing foods and remedies perfect for the season
First, reserve at least half of the berries and all of the leaves on wide flat trays to dry. Wash them by running them through a colander under cold water and shaking them well before placing them on the racks.
Cookie sheets with cooling racks to lift the leaves and berries off the surface of the pan work great. No racks? Simply spread parchment paper on the pans before spreading the leaves and berries out to dry. If using an oven, use it only after it has been turned off and the oven temperature is 90°F or less. Otherwise, the leaves will turn into burnt dust in a hurry. You may also want to separate the berries and leaves and dry them at temperatures up to 130°F to 150°F and keep the leaves at lower temperatures. Keeping them in sealed paper bags until you use them to make teas or other recipes will prevent moisture from sealing in, which can cause them to spoil or mold.
This will give you long-lasting berries to use later, as well as the first two ingredients of hawthorn tea. Berries won’t stay fresh, so dry any you’re not ready to use right away.
Hawthorn Berries Crushed Tea (crataegus Monogyna)
Then wash, pick and peel the rest of the berries. You can use the recipes on this page to make tincture, syrup, and a delicious savory tomato sauce with the berries. Now you can measure your berries and decide on the recipes and decide how much you want to make. I usually make all three recipes in one afternoon to get the most out of working with the berries at the same time.
First decide what syrup you want to make. Boiling the syrup requires about twenty times the weight of berries in water, so if you plan to make a quart or more of syrup, you’ll need at least a 10-quart pot to hold the water.
Hawthorn syrup is a well-known herbal remedy for coughs, colds, flu symptoms, headaches, and strengthening the heart.
Select the berries and weigh them so you know how much water to add to the pot. For simplicity, we’ll say we’re using 100 grams of berries, or 3.5 ounces, because it’s so easy to measure the water. I would suggest using multiples of 100 grams for your recipe. This will mean 3.5, 7, 10.5 and 14 ounces as you increase the recipe. But remember that you need 20 times the water, so unless you have a very large slow cooker, you’ll be working with the lower numbers here.
Indian Hawthorn Berries Information And Facts
This is an amazing sauce to use with winter squash, meats and vegetables. We love the pork chops with cabbage and kale.
Hawthorn has been used to strengthen the heart and provide healing for centuries. The famous hawthorn syrup of Dr. Christopher is still sold today and has a significant and growing following of those who swear by its healing powers. Now you can enjoy these delicious and healing berries all year round with your own berries. The syrup and ketchup will last up to about 3 months in the refrigerator.
When you run out, simply use the dried berries to make new batches. You’ll need to put the berries in fresh water at room temperature for an hour or so before starting the recipes to rehydrate them, but then they’ll be ready to go just like fresh fall berries.
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How To Make Hawthorne Berry Tea
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Orange to deep red berries, usually single, although in some species or hybrids there may be more, hang in clusters in autumn.
The berries are best after a frost in the fall, but since the frosts come later and then you try the berries, they are ready when they are sweet. We now also have freezers so that the berries can be artificially ‘whipped’ (frozen).
All parts of hawthorn are good for regulating blood pressure, but the leaves are the best and are used to make a tea.
Foraging Rose Hips & Wild Rose: Identification, Harvesting, & Uses
Hawthorn has a few different species and many hybrids growing in the UK, but the most common is monogyna followed by Midland hawthorn, laevigata. Both can grow as a bush like shrub or more like a tree with monogyna usually more upright.
Berries are high in pectin and are a great addition to jellies and jams to help them set. The berries make a fine jelly on their own and just the juice, made by crushing the berries in your hands and straining them, will set very quickly without heating. If the berries are very sweet, no sugar is needed, otherwise just add a little sugar to taste. This post contains affiliate links, which means I may make a small commission based on your purchase at no extra cost to you.
Gather for a cup of warmed apple cider with magical, uplifting hawthorn to mend our metaphorical hearts in times of great sorrow and pain.
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Salmonella And Norovirus In Berries
They say the proverbial veil is thinnest this time of year. The trees are shedding their glorious foliage, and the remaining sun casts long shadows on the leafy ground. It’s a time to let go. It is a moment of great cooling. It is a time when we must recognize the nature of things, and in doing so we must consider death.
A series of major tragedies and natural disasters, as well as the recent death of a friend, pressed home to me the solemnity of seasonality and the importance of gathering as an act of healing. I write very often about the benefits of plants in the physical sense. But what about the metaphorical heart? I am so grateful to work with Mountain Rose Herbs to bring you a message of healing and hope, even when our days and hearts may be dark and filled with sorrow.
Whether or not you observe remnants of the “old ways” and ancient spiritual traditions, the fall has the unmistakable face of death and loss in its waning light. The frosts give a ghostly pallor to the landscape. The trees have left their leaves. Herbs remain dormant. Even the berries and fruits on the branches and vines darken and fall. It is a time when the botanical world seeks the comfort of the earth and descends into a great dream. A metaphor for mortality if ever there was one.
Autumn is also a time of gathering and provisioning. Perhaps modern society is so removed from the very acts of gathering and hunting that our beings long for a sense of self-sufficiency and fulfillment. Technology, convenience and commerce make these instincts obsolete. Maybe that’s why I see frantic behavior: cranky moms in the yard (in the mirror), distracted dads, people driving too fast, people hoarding too much stuff. Our basic instincts are being ignored. It’s weird and strange, though we’ve never known anything different.
My Wildcrafting Course: Working With Hawthorn
Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) has a long history of association with the physical heart. But far beyond that is the hawthorn fable and folklore that tells me a lot about this special, if not sacred, tree and its flowers, leaves and berries, even its thorns. There are hundreds of magically rich threads woven from the legendary and revered hawthorn, some of which resonate deeply and deeply within me.
Hawthorn, also known as white hawthorn, is associated with the ancient Roman Cardea, goddess of the hinge, overseer and protector of doors and thresholds. Autumn is like Mother Nature’s great hinge, the