Salmon Berries - Sweet and Sour

Salmon Berries are such a conundrum.  You see them all over the place, large juicy looking berries that you keep convincing your self must be delicious!  Eating them can be a different story.  Some can have a really great taste with a mild aftertaste.  Others are straight up sour, and the color, ripeness, and size seem to have no bearing on the taste.

One of my sons loves eating them though- munches down buckets of them in the early spring.

I eat some to be supportive, and like about the first dozen.  The fact that they come out before all the other berries makes them easier to like.  Sitting next to blackberries or raspberries, I would pass on the off flavor of the Salmon Berries, but in the late spring, before the blackberries are even blooming, they are worth a snack while wandering around in the forest.

Does anyone have any good recipes for salmon berries?  Though they are gone for the year in my neck of the woods, I keep thinking I should do something with the large quantities next year!

Black Caps - Wild Raspberries

As a kid, I searched out every Black Cap bush within a several mile radius of my parents house.  The wild cousin of the domestic Red Raspberry, western Black Raspberries or Black Caps (link to genus definition) as I grew up calling them.  The taste is different, maybe more wild?  I am not sure how to describe what makes them different than red raspberries, but I know that I love the flavor and seek them out as soon as they come into season.  An added benefit, is that the season for these berries is fairly long, with each berry cluster generally ripening one at a time over a period of 4-8 weeks.  A good bush though can have dozens of canes with dozens of clusters on each cane, making for a very good forest treat!

Here in Western Washington, the berries are ripe now and should be producing through August.

The berries produce off of the previous years canes, so when picking be careful of the shoots coming up around the base of the plant as this is the next years crop.

Recipes?  I think a syrup would be delicious, but have never made it back to the house with enough to do anything substantial with.  Last year, I made a mixed berry cobbler with black caps, red huckleberries, and dew berries that came out excellent though!