Autumn berries
Had no idea why the berries on our curry-leaf tree would choose the beginning of Autumn to start maturing, but there's no denying that's exactly what they're doing.
Also had no idea that the berries grew to this size. In previous years they didn't seem to grow anywhere near big enough to attract hungry birds to them - wouldn't be worth their while.
But again, that's what's happening - although the relatively light bird traffic to and from the curry-leaf tree suggests there may be plenty of more attractive alternatives in other nearby gardens.
Having never seen or heard of curry-leaf berries for sale or on a menu, and having never tried one at home, I had no idea about what the birds might be attracted to.
But I did have an idea about what to do about that, so launched myself into a small-scale tasting test. Got to say, while I didn't expect them to taste at all like a curry, they're much better tasting than I'd imagined they would be, and I've now got sort of an idea what the bird-fuss is all about.
The flesh is nicely firm but not crunchy, and is only 2-3mm deep because there's a hard green-pea sized seed/stone inside.
It's a subtle but not at all bitter or unpleasant taste, not entirely unlike a grape, but without the high sugar levels. My sense of taste is not great, so no detailed (let alone accurate) descriptions here.
Several minutes after the test, I started to get this quite pleasant aftertaste happening - around the mid-palate area, I think, but only a presumptuous guess - so headed back to the tree for some more tasting.
Which is how I discovered that the larger, presumably riper berries have a stone inside, but the smaller ones do not.
I did have an idea about the tree's possible regeneration strategy here: hungry birds would presumably tend to go for the larger berries with the seeds inside, thereby ensuring a larger number of seeds are distributed by the birds, and a larger number of curry-leaf trees are propagated.
No scientific or horticultural basis whatsoever, but works for me.
- 1
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- Olympus E-M1MarkII
- 1/125
- f/10.0
- 60mm
- 400
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