North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

Richard,  Wait before passing judgement on the autumn olives, and try them again.  You can crush the raw berries to get the juice and mix it 3 parts juice to 1 part half and half.  I liked it that way, and if it tastes good like that, it just needs some crushed graham crackers and some thickening and maybe a few other things to make a dessert. 

    However, the most common use for them it in wine.  They provide astringency that is absolutely needed to make wine taste right.  The best thing would be to just make up some autumn olive wine, label and date it, and then if you make wine from peaches or pears anytime in the next few years, you can blend the results to make the best flavor.  Peaches and pears tend to lack astringency and make rather flat tasting insipid wines unless some blending is done or tannin is added.  I do wines 1 quart of fruit or fruit juice and 2 lbs of sugar to the gallon.  (I really don't like sweet wine!)  Even if you are not a drinker, you can do fun things with wine for flavoring foods. If you would be using it only for flavoring, you could actually make the wine with more fruit, up to 100% fruit juice plus the 2 lbs sugar.  This is what I do when I can get hold of wild black cherries, and sometimes with blackberries.   Donna