The Forager Chef (Alan Bergo) made a blog post a while back about hackberries and provided two recipes for them.
I have tasted hackberries and can confirm they have a pleasant, date-like flavour. Hackberry is not well represented in my new neighborhood, but there are a few trees accessible to me (street, park) that I might try foraging from.
My cousin and I were talking about how it would be neat if we were able to develop cultivars with thicker flesh, but it would probably be a hard sell from a funding perspective.
Has anyone else tried them? If not, I suggest giving them a nibble.
I’ve tried them (either that or sugarberry), and I agree that they are tasty. However, the extremely thin pulp and the fact they remain way high up in the branches makes it hard to do anything serious with them unless you’re a bird. I’m curious, have you ever found one with pulp more than 0.5 mm thick, or with a less towering form? Those would be game changers!
Edit: reading the article now and just saw the suggestion to think of it as a but with bonus berry. Intriguing…
We were very lucky at our first house. It was on a hill, so the front yard was about level with the lower canopy of the hackberry planted in the boulevard strip. It was easy to pick berries for snacks at that house, but where I am now there are some pretty big, mature trees and height is a real problem. My husband is a climbing arborist and has been trying to get me into the hobby for years… he may finally get his wish. LOL
So far in my experience the pulp has always been very thin but I’ll have to start paying more attention once I start foraging for them. I don’t mind the seed but I don’t know that I could go a whole sitting gnawing through seeds just because I enjoy the overall flavour. I suppose that’s why Alan is pulping them for his recipes. I think I’d probably opt for trying to produce a hackberry butter or custard rather than a “milk”.
They are a hardy tree, one of the handfull that spread here in dry central kansas and thrive.
I eat the berries. When they get a tad overripe the date flavor gets nice!
I have read that when they dry out you can grind and substitute for black pepper, that indians did.
There are very strong tree too. We have two giant ones flanking our house. 4 years ago we were on the outer edge of a tornado, 120 mph winds, neither tree dropped a branch. We Lost pines, spruces, mulberries, and a honey locust (wish we’d lost more of those). Black walnuts and elms lost several branches. Hackberries didn’t flinch. Another nice feature, their leaves just kind of mostly disintegrate. So little to rake. Never tried the berries though, I’ll have to do that.
The hackberry prefers a neutral soil pH and I had never seen one until the college years…any zone 5 or 6 that grows clover well probably grows hackberry ok.
But, I park a vehicle under a walnut tree…yep got a dent or two as thousands of nuts fell this year…
but if I had parked under a hackberry tree some 50 feet away, I might not have a truck. Sixty mile winds took a limb at least 6" thick out of the tree…this Sept or Oct I can’t recall exact date.
So,
the sawmills don’t seem to want the logs
and it doesn’t seem to be any stronger than even tulip poplar in storms…and the berries are starvation rations like juniper berries.
I think the reason the hackberry fares ok in most storms is the open head of the tree, letting wind pass through the branches rather than having to go around them or blow the entire tree down.
It is a tree nobody seems to love here in the Bluegrass.
My hackberry has a very good shape to it. If it weren’t there my citrus trees would grow a lot better in summer and fall. Because of it the citrus trees only do well in late fall through spring till the HB leaf’s out again.
The nursery I work at produces hundreds of hackberry all from local seed source as we collect our own. Tough as nails tree that is highly sought after by municipalities for street tree use. Not much requested for a shade tree by most home owners however (all they want are maples anyway).
Great wildlife value however. I have to believe that perhaps sugar hackberry has more and better tasting fruit? I cannot recall fruit from our local hackberries being tasty.
Super hardy tree and grows well. Outside my office window is a giant one. I admire the form and bark every day I view it. I have never seen storm issues around here on hackberry. We just had 70 MPH winds in the storm that blew thru a day ago. I saw norway maples and arborvitaes uprooted but not hackberry.
@PaulinKansas6b really, black pepper? I’m going to have to try this. Perhaps dried they would also make a good addition into a soup or rub.
Hackberries are a really charming tree, in my opinion. I love the jigsaw texture of their bark. If we had a larger property, I’d probably plant one or two. We’re fortunate to have some really handsome ones here in Saint Paul. When they’re planted in an open park or boulevard setting they seem to develop a really lovely branch structure.
@Spartan as much as I like maple, I really do get tired of seeing it. It is so overplanted!
A few weeks ago, I found the best-tasting Sugarberries (Celtis laevigata) ever! Most are a little sweet, but without any other flavor. But the fruits from this one tree in the wild also had a distinctive, jujube taste to them too. Absolutely delicious!
Hackberries in Texas are considered trash trees. They have soft wood and get diseases that cause major limbs to die and break. They handle winds pretty good but that is due to leaves not catching the wind. They are ok as long as they are away from structures such as houses. Many of the trees have hollow trunks.
@luxin I didn’t know about this species until recently when I was reading up on hackberries. I’m not sure when I’ll be traveling in its range next but will have to keep an eye out. It would be interesting to compare the two fruits.
In Texas they are called Hackberries in the Central and Western part of the Texas and sugar berries in the eastern part of the state. They are the same tree. Not sure of the species name.
Apparently there are 2 main type of Hackberry, (occidentalis, laevigata) with occidentalis in the western part of Texas and laevigata in the eastern part, but in practical terms they are the same. They are know as fast growing and fast dying, often infected with mistletoe. Wood rots fast. A good wildlife tree, just not a good landscape tree due to short life. You will find them growing along fence rows, since that is where the birds deposit the seeds. Can make a hedgerow of trees.
