Row ash bears bright red fruits from the end of August until winter: rowan berries or mountain ash berries. The trees are an important source of food for birds. But people can also eat the berries when cooked.
What is the mountain ash fruit?
The mountain ash (also called rowan berry) is a fruit that ripens in bright red umbels on rowan trees from the end of August until winter. It is an important source of food for birds and can be cooked for humans as jam, jelly, juice, rowan brandy or tea.
rowan berries ripen in cones
From the end of August, rowan trees can no longer be overlooked. Many clusters of bright red rowan berries hang on them.
Unlike other berries, rowanberries stay on the tree over the winter. They help feed the birds, especially in the cold season.
Raw rowan berries are slightly poisonous to humans
Rowberries contain traces of parasorbic acid, which can cause mild symptoms of poisoning in people.
Adults can tolerate individual raw berries without any problems, only children and animals, except of course birds, should not eat raw rowan berries.
If large quantities of rowan berries are eaten raw, the body reacts with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Harvesting rowanberries for the kitchen
Rowberries can be harvested from the tree from August. They have a very tart taste, some varieties are also very bitter. These are not suitable for use in the kitchen. Therefore, take a berry and check with your tongue whether it is one of the particularly bitter varieties.
One way to mitigate the bitter taste is not to harvest the berries before the first frost or to place the picked rowanberries in the freezer for a short time.
The whole cone is always picked. Before preparing, the berries are carefully rinsed and dried. You can easily remove the stems with a fork.
You can prepare rowan berries:
- Jam
- Jelly
- Juice
- Rowberry Brandy
- Tea
Rowberries can also be dried. The slightly toxic ingredients evaporate during the drying process.
Dried berries taste good when added to tea, especially in combination with apple and pear pieces.
If you keep pet birds in the house, you should definitely dry some rowan berries from the garden and give them to your favorites as additional food.
Tips & Tricks
Row ash berries not only contain a lot of vitamin C, but also a lot of bitter substances. In natural medicine, rowan berries are used to regulate problems with the digestive tract because of this active ingredient.
