A Tribute to the Spiny Vine

Dewberry season has arrived in South Mississippi.

A lot of people call them blackberries. For the most part, they are wrong.

Dewberries, which proliferate in these environs, are bigger and sweeter.

These spiny vines, like kudzu or wisteria, can take over a yard -- or a garden -- in nothing flat. For that reason, they are usually considered a "nuisance" plant.

But, oh what an attractive nuisance.

Walking home from school on a warm spring day, I'd scope out vacant lots and the embankments along the railroad tracks looking for the profusion of white blossoms that heralded a bumper crop.

The blooms of April gave way to hard green clusters which slowly deepened from ruby to burgundy, then black to be plucked and tossed into the nearest empty receptacle -- usually my mouth or failing that my Cinderella lunch box.

The vines did not yield their bounty easily. The intrepid berry-picker, no matter how well covered, does not come away from a dewberry patch unscratched. Snakes and ants are also a danger.

On Point Cadet, the best dewberry pickings were found along the fishing bridge's access road from Howard Avenue to Ott's Fish Camp. One misstep and a kid could roll down that steep slope, crashing through tangled thorny vines, and right into the brown sluggish waters of Back Bay amid the broken concrete, abandoned rusty auto parts and God knows what all.

Yet all these risks were so worth the rewards.

My mother, though not a big dewberry fan, dutifully turned my harvest into a ceremonial cobbler every year. While the berries popped and bubbled in the hot oven, their purply juice oozing over and around the golden crust, Mama sprayed Bactine on my hard-earned battle scars, then we'd sit down to enjoy the fruits of our labors along with big scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Dewberry Cobbler

1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 teaspoons, vanilla extract
Dash or two of cinnamon (optional)
3 1/2 cups of fresh dewberries, washed
1 9-inch pie crust (I'm lazy and use 1/2 package of the refrigerated pie crust)
1 Tablespoon sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Stir together the first 4 ingredients (or first 5 if using the cinnamon) in a large bowl. Gently stir in berries until the sugar mixture is crumbly. Spoon mixture into a lightly greased 11 x 7 baking dish. Cut pie crust into 1" wide strips and arrange in a lattice design over the berries. Sprinkle top with the sugar/cinnamon mixture.

Bake at 425 degrees for 45 minutes. Until crust is golden and the center is bubbly. Serve with vanilla ice cream if desired (I highly recommend you do).


As with fish and crabs, berries taste so much better when you pick them yourself.