yesterday afternoon i met the lovely laura reinsborough from not far from the tree with her little guy, and suzanne long, a long-time toronto good food hunter.  we had planned to meet to harvest some city serviceberries, and this was my first exposure to harvesting from public trees/plants.  the small branches were laden with berries, and if you didn't know what you were looking for, you'd easily dismiss these as poisonous.  but at the same time, we also discussed how quickly people dismiss things as poisonous or inedible simply because the idea of them being edible and free just seems too generous for a public space.

suzanne told us that this particular set of bushes is quite popular, and more and more people know about them.  there were two joggers who ran by us, stopped to investigate, and then began pulling berries off of the trees for themselves.  suzanne even held out her container of berries for a gatorade-during-a-marathon-style pickup as someone jogged by.  

i don't know about you, but this whole idea of fruit trees in the city, just waiting to be harvested and enjoyed seems like a divinely organized bit of grace.  and it reminds us that before we had markets and the global food trade, we simply got our food by pulling it off of a tree.  i returned home with a cookie tin full of serviceberries, a nice tip about where to find more, and the really giddy delight at enjoying the generous bounty of the harvest.

here's the plant, full of berries that suzanne said were about two days away from being perfect.

i originally just brought a coffee mug from the backseat of my car to collect berries in.  these little things have a curranty tartness that sometimes has a slight almond flavour when you crunch into the little seeds.  they're unique and pretty delicious.  and don't forget, they don't sell these babies anywhere, you just have to know where to find them.