7 August: Raspberries

National Raspberries and Cream Day. Here are 10 facts about raspberries:

1. Raspberries belong to the genus Rubus, part of the rose family. The subgenus is Idaeobatus.
2. Rubus means Red, and the subgenus name means "belonging to Ida". This is because of a myth. When the god Jupiter was a baby, he cried. So Ida, a nymph charged with taking care of him, went to pick some raspberries to give to him. At that time, raspberries were White, according to legend. However, while gathering the fruit, Ida pricked her finger and stained the berries red for all eternity.
3. The name “raspberry” comes from “raspise”, meaning a “sweet rose-coloured wine”, which in turn comes from “raspoie,” meaning “thicket”.
4. Every raspberry is made up of about 100 individual fruits called drupelets, each containing one seed, arranged around a central stem.
5. There are over 200 species of raspberries, but only a few are cultivated and consumed commercially.
6. While most raspberries are red, they come in a variety of other colours – Yellow, golden, Purple or Black. Surely, I hear you say, a black raspberry is a blackberry, isn't it? Well, no, Blackberries are a different species. The way to tell a black raspberry from a blackberry is to look at the middle of the fruit. When raspberries are picked, the stem is left behind leaving a hole in the middle. Blackberries retain a central core.
7. There's an old German myth which says that if your Horse is bewitched and becomes wild, it can be tamed by tying a raspberry twig around the horse's body. You have to catch the horse first, mind you.
8. Raspberries are an excellent source of dietary fibre, Vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin B9, and minerals such as manganese and magnesium. They contain nutrients which are good for high blood pressure, inflammation of the joints and liver function. In Eastern Asia, they were once used as a remedy for a sore throat.
9. The top of the table for world raspberry production is Russia, producing between 20 and 26% of the world supply. Other large producers are Mexico and Poland.
10. If you cross a raspberry plant with a blackberry plant, the result is a loganberry.

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