Vanessa asks, "What service do service berries provide?" A good question, that can be answered seriously. Service berries are one of the earliest flowering and fruiting trees of the summer. The fruits are small reddish maroon berries that look a bit like blueberries that are edible to both birds and people. They make great jam and are often picked with their little woody stems and all, like mulberries. A folk legend suggests that the name comes from the belief that when the trees flowered the ground was thawed enough to bury corpses that died over the winter. The more likely reason is that the tree is a close relation to the European Sorbus berry. Serviceberries are also called juneberries.
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You know, there is a service berry tree right next to the tent at the Deli. I picked a fair amount two summers ago and made some tasty jam.
ReplyDeleteAaron
An alternate story says that "service" is a corruption of the same latin root (cerevisiae, "of beer") that gives us "cerveza", referring to the use of the fruit in brewing...
ReplyDeleteThere are service berries all over ann arbor, also check out the ones on fifth and washington, by the bank there. You can eat for weeks
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