Mulberries

The mulberries are in season in June. When I lived outside Philadelphia, I was the only person I knew who ate them. Between here and there, next to sidewalks and on lawns, huge mulberry trees drop their fruit to leave purple splotches on the concrete. The birds and I are the only ones I’ve ever seen eat them. I used to sneak onto lawns, grab as many berries as quickly as I could, and walk down the street with stained fingers and lips.

In Turkey, there are both white and black mulberries. You can buy dried white ones in the stores that sell nuts, dried fruit and leblebe (roasted chick peas. Yum.) There is a very small ice cream shop in Bebek, about the size of a closet, that sells the best black mulberry ice cream. When they’re in season, you can buy mulberries from the markets and even on the street. Since they are fragile, you have to carry them carefully. More than once I have arrived home with a soggy paper bag of mulberry juice.

Between my apartment and work, there are several white mulberry trees. The fruit is not too sweet and very refreshing. Every day, I stop and eat them. I pull the branches to reach as many as I can. More often than not, the perfectly ripe ones drop to the blacktop before I can pick them. Sometimes, I interrupt another person guiltily involved in the same sport. Sometimes we ignore each other, at other times we help each other. I’ll pull the branches and point while a stranger picks the fruit. Then we give each other moist towellettes from the bottom of our handbags and say “thank you.” (Always have a packet of moist towellettes handy, especially in the summer heat.)

The ripest, plumpest and juiciest berries, the size of half of my thumb, are always out of my reach towards the top of the tree. They taunt me.