http://www.wildfoods.info/wildfoods/chokecherry.html My latest obsession is stuff you can pick off trees and eat, like chokecherries and wild apples. Blackberries are heavenly too, though they grow on bushes, prickly ones. I am apparently willing to bleed for food. Sweet, tart, rich, juicy food, anyway.
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There's a chokecherry tree across the street from our house, in a patch of brush and trees that (I believe) is public land. . . No one scolded me, anyway, when I planted the ladder to pick the higher berries. There were still ones far above my head I couldn't reach, which was frustrating and I felt like I was living a parable. I could suddenly understand why people do dangerous things for foolish reasons. Just a little bit higher; just a few more chokecherries. . .
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They are very good boiled and strained into a syrup made with fructose. Of course, you can also use sugar. The syrup is excellent on vanilla ice cream; it is fine on pork chops. You can also drink it straight and collapse on the kitchen floor in wild fruit ecstasy.
