Shami Berries

An earlier version of this post was called “Aleppo Berries” because I misremembered what they were called. See the little note at the bottom.

Syria

My only memory of Syria is when we visited for our first (and last) time since moving to the US. My mom was tired of not being able to visit her family due to our visa status. We visited Syria without a guarantee that we would be allowed back. It was the summer of 2010. If we had delayed the trip any longer, it would have been impossible, but we didn’t know that at the time.

I remember having my birthday in our donut shaped house where we were staying with my grandma. The center was a courtyard open directly to the sky. Since we hadn’t visited Syria in 7 years, we went to house after house, greeting relatives and friends. I forget most of the houses we visited, but there was one that will stay in my heart forever. It was home to a massive mulberry tree stretching its branches into the sky. I stained my clothes deep purple as I enjoyed every berry I could reach with my little arms.

In Arabic, we called mulberries توت (toot), which just translates to “berry”. Red mulberries specifically are often called توت شامي (toot shami) or Shami Berry. My faint memory of climbing the mulberry tree, eating to my heart’s content, is one of few memories that tie me back to Syria. My mom is also fond of mulberries, which brings them even closer to my heart.

Some "red" mulberries I foraged in new york.

Of the memories remaining from that trip, another key moment was when we were attempting to return to the US. My mom’s brother had driven us to the airport in Aleppo. We had arrived on time for our flight, but were prevented from leaving. The Syrian government decided that my mom needed permission from my father to travel without him. He was not here. He did not come with us on this trip.

I was a kid and did not fully understand what was going on or why. I understood enough that something was stopping me from seeing my dad. Graciously, the government decided our father’s brother could authorize my mother’s departure. As he raced to get to the airport in time, we were able to make our flight, and return to the US.

I didn’t think that we would have mulberries in the US, and so I didn’t look for them. I would not taste the fruit of my home again until many years later, on a trip to Boston.

Boston

It was July 2019 and we drove to Boston to visit old neighbors who moved out not too long before. Their new home had a large backyard and a couple small fruit bearing trees. I didn’t know that mulberries grew in north america. I never thought to check. The idea to search for the berry of my birthplace never crossed my mind, but fate had brought the berries to me.

We stayed at our friend’s place for a couple nights, and we started the morning with a nice session of mulberry picking. I methodically selected the ripest berries, not knowing when I would ever get a chance to taste them again. I presented them to my mom in a white bowl, asking her if this was the توت that we had in Syria.

I was overjoyed to have mulberries again. Is it because I liked how they taste? Or is it because they’re a physical connection back to Syria? A place I can’t see myself visiting any time soon, so these are as close as I can get. For now.

Pittsburgh

Fast forward another 4 years and I find myself in Pittsburgh walking on the river trail and stumble upon a mulberry tree. It was still early summer and there wasn’t that many ripe berries yet. I took all the berries I could and marked the location to revisit as the summer progressed.

After I told my friends at work about my new passion for foraging mulberries, one graciously informed me of fallingfruit.org, a website where people have marked not just mulberry trees, but all fruit bearing trees. This gave me little side quests to scout marked trees to find the best tasting. Slowly, I began to learn the characteristics of my favorite trees. The leaves have jagged edges and can range from leaf-shaped to squiggly-leaf-shaped.

By coincidence these also happen to be a red mulberry tree on the left and white mulberry tree on the right.

One of my friends actually found a mulberry of their own. Sending me a photo of a brown paper bag filled with berries. It was nice to see someone else joining me on my new found adventure.

As the summer went on, I traveled around the city looking for new mulberry trees, but found myself returning to that first historic trail. While on my mulberry runs, people would sometimes stop to ask what I was doing. Many were curious about the berries and how they tasted. Others stopped to chat about the mulberries and tell me other spots that had good trees. One evening, I saw someone carrying a ladder on the trail. His purple stained fingers explained everything. The next time on the trail, I made sure to bring my little step ladder to get a bit of extra reach into the trees.

New York

The following summer, I had moved to new york and had to find new mulberry trees. Armed with the website my friend showed me, I visited various parts of central park early in the summer and identified the mulberry trees. Most of the tree branches were too high to be climbable. Sometimes I couldn’t even locate a tree that had been marked on the map. After multiple attempts, I finally found a group of accessible mulberry trees on the edge of a lake.

There were red and white mulberries, with sturdy branches dangling over the lake. Climbing trees was one of my favorite things when I was younger, and still is today. I spent a good amount of time climbing the trees, collecting berries, and going increasingly higher to find the sweeter berries.

Walking around the city during mulberry season, I noticed some mulberry trees thanks to the mulberry polka-dotted stained sidewalk underneath them.

So many berries gone to waste.

For fun, I decided to do a sweep of the entire east village going up and down the streets to find all the mulberry trees. I found over 10 trees in just over an hour of riding my bike. None of them tasted as good as the ones in central park though. I did find a cherry tree along the way. Turns out staring at trees for an hour really helps you hone your skills of looking for any fruit in trees.

Mulberries

You’ll probably never find mulberries for sale in a grocery store. They’re too fragile to be packaged and sold and will stain your hands as you pluck them from the tree. They’re in season mid to late summer and are worth going on an expedition to find.

Mulberries resemble blackberries, but are softer, milder, and not as tart. They have a unique sweetness that varies between each tree. Red mulberries have a deep purple color with highlights of red and stains your hands so people know what you were just up to. The white mulberries usually ripen with a light purple hue, but I have seen some that are absolutely white.

A white mulberry with small sugar blob.

The best mulberries I had were the white mulberries I found in central park. They turned slightly translucent to indicate their ripeness. Similar to a ripe green fig, they tasted like honey, a reward for finding them among the other trees and for daring to climb the branches hanging above the water.

I’m now constantly looking at trees, always pointing out mulberry trees to my friends when I see them, even without the fruit. Maybe as a way of making sure they don’t forget that I like mulberries. But also maybe as a way to constantly remind myself of my home.

Further Research (October 19, 2024)

Upon asking my mom about mulberries, turns out they are not called Aleppo Berries. They’re called توت شامي (toot shami) which means Al-Sham Berry or Syrian Berry depending on how you want to translate it.

The wikipedia page for black mulberries confirms this name. I found a blog post someone had written back in 2006 about toot shami in Syria. I didn’t know that they made it into juice. I wish I could have experienced it.