Round and round the mulberry bush | Mulberries (Tut)
The ripe fruit of the mulberry plant, locally known as tut, is so fragile and perishable, due to their high water content and thin skins, that they do not travel well making them largely unavailable in many countries.
Rachel Zammit Cutajar
Three varieties of mulberry exist, white, red and black with the fruit of the red and black varieties being strongest in flavour.
The black mulberry is native to southwest Asia and the red mulberry native to eastern North America, the mulberry tree was introduced to the Maltese islands by the Phoenicians. It produces a red berry, which turns black when ripe, with reddish tones when eaten, and has a tart-sweet taste. The trees are fast growing, and can grow up to nine metres and produce a massive amount of berries.
The berry is widely used raw, or served as a dessert with ice cream. They can also be used in pies, tarts, wines, cordials and tea.
Try juicing the berries and serving with champagne, or making ice cream or sorbet. The berries can also be soaked in red wine and vodka and placed in the fridge for two weeks, then served topped with soda water.
Mulberry jam is also popular as is mulberry jelly, smoothies and cobblers. They are also a great accompaniment to pancakes.
Mulberries are acutally a good source of raw food protien, a rarity in the fruit kingdom. They are also a good source of magnesium, potassium, riboflavin, iron, calcium, vitamin C, and fiber. One of the mulberry's greatest health assets is it's high concentration of resveratrol, an antioxidant currently being studied for its effects on heart health.
The fruit and leaves of the mulberry tree are used as nutritional supplements. In Chinese medicine, mulberries are used to treat ailments such as anemia, dizziness, low libido and pre-mature greying of the hair.
Greek folklore tells the tale of how mulberries got their red colour. Pyramus and Thisbe were neighbors who fell in love when they became adults. Their parents disapproved, but the lovers communicated secretly, through a crack in the wall separating their houses. One night, they eloped, but Thisbe was frightened away from their rendezvous point, a white mulberry tree, by a bloody-mouthed lion that had just finished a meal. She escaped and hid, but lost her cloak, which the lion mauled and bloodied.
Pyramus, seeing the bloody mouthed lion and the cloak, imagined the worst, and impaled himself on his sword. His blood colored the mulberries red. When Thisbe found him and realized what had happened, she followed him to death on same sword. The European mulberry species has been red ever since.
