Some Indigenous Fruits and Berries and their Harvesting in the Mirror of Language and Tradition

Abstract

While most of the fruits and berries we nowadays consume are exotic in origin, there are a few indigenous ones that, when we harvest them in the wild, put us in touch with the food-gathering activities and experiences of earlier generations. Much can be learnt from the names of such fruits and berries, and from the culinary, medicinal, and domestic uses to which they are put. As for the folklore associated with them, although this often suggests great antiquity, it can seldom be traced back more than a couple of centuries. This dearth of historical evidence can to some extent be compensated for by a comparative approach, which, with all due caution, identifies remarkably similar traditions in widely separated geographical locations. The identification and assessment of further such traditions would open a door to a better understanding of their true significance.