Fruit of the Week: Tayberry

Name: Tayberry

Brand: The Summer Kitchen in Highland, WI (sounds pretty Scottish)

Place of Purchase: Carr Valley Cheese in Fennimore, WI

Country/Region of Origin: USA but originally cultivated in Scotland

Price in Wisconsin: $7.50 for a big jar of jam.

Description: The jam looks like jam. The fruit looks like a big red blackberry.

Flavor: Tangy, tangy, tangy. My wife said that it was sour, but I could still detect the sweetness of the blackberries. It favored the raspberry side of the hybrid for flavors, lacking the complexity of the blackberry.

Aroma: Like raspberries and sugars.

Texture/Mouth-feel: The drupelets were larger, like the aggregate-accessory fruit of the blackberry. This gives the jam a fuller, meatier mouth-feel. It's pretty seedy, though.

Notes: Another jam. Sorry guys. The tayberry is hard to get a hold of because it isn't grown in many places. I was lucky to get some in Wisconsin, where they grow and harvest them in late summer. Tayberries also produce a delicate fruit, so they have to picked by hand and don't transport well. I liked the flavor. I love raspberries, especially in pie. I'm thinking of turning some of this jam into tarts tomorrow. That's something to be thankful for...