Mulberries and Silk

It’s mulberry season in Tuscany!  One of my favorite fruits, I remember picking them as a child when visiting my mother’s family in the Midwest and was thrilled to see so many here in Tuscany.  There’s something so satisfying about actually picking fruit off the tree and eating it right away, or taking the fruits of your labors home to make jams to enjoy another day.  Mulberries aren’t much revered or appreciated, and they’re kind of a mess to have in your yard because the berries drop and stain, but like all wild berries they’re filled with good vitamins and minerals and are a welcome harbinger of summertime abundance.

The Tuscan countryside is covered with mulberry trees, a leftover from one of the most important industries of the Middle Ages:  silk weaving.  Italian silk was legendary. From the Middle Ages until the late 19^th century, Florence, Lucca and Siena were amoung the major centers of highly prized Italian silk weaving.  But most of today’s production comes from China, where silk was first invented thousands of years ago.

Silk is produced from spun thread of the silkworm cocoon and the only thing a silkworm will eat is mulberry leaf.  For over 4000 years humans have raised silk worms for their silk with the result that the silkworm has become totally reliant on humans for food and won’t go in search of anything to eat.  In today’s commercial silk operations, the silkworms are hatched and fed a steady diet of ground mulberry leaves for two months until they’re old enough to form a cocoon, which they make with a continuous silk thread.  The cocoons are then soaked in hot water, the worm inside dies, and the cocoons are spun for the silk thread, which is unwound and used.

Wait til PETA hears about this.

Silk is not only beautiful but strong and resistant.  A single silk thread is stronger than an equal thread of steel.  Silk is almost waterproof, not easily soiled or burned and stronger than flax or cotton.

In the middle ages silk production in these parts was an important part of the economy and the trees that are left from it hundreds of years later have spread across the landscape.  The mulberries here are generally either the white variety (which according to my Google search originated in Russia) or the black, which are big and plumb and resemble a blackberry.  Mulberries are also native to America, but I’ve never found the berries there to be as big as the ones we get here in Italy.

The mulberries I find in Tuscany are great cooked as well, resulting in a dark and fruity jam reminiscent of the berry.  The smaller ones in America tend of lose their fresh berry flavor when cooked. They are best eaten fresh off the tree.

My favorite way to eat them is cold out of the fridge, sitting on my terrace contemplating the Tuscan morning.  But the big black ones also make a wonderful jam, perfect for crostata!  So if it’s mulberry season where you are, go climb a tree and enjoy!