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Service is Just a Tree in Europe
There is a tree in the apple tribe and subtribe that is called the service tree. The name has an etymology that has nothing to do with the other word of the same spelling. The Latin name is “sorbus,” and the binomial is Sorbus domestica.
It produces a fruit called the sorb, and it has often been used in making fruit wine and brandies. It is not the most common fruit out there, and perhaps it has been lost to us against its more popular cousins, the apples and pears.
Have any of you had sorbs? Have you had some product of it, such as sorb wine or brandy or jam?
Published in Group Writing
Anyone enjoy any other odd or uncommon fruits or the products thereof?
Not exactly fruit related, but I recently saw a show about food innovators, and Heinz ketchup was one of the threads. I never knew before Heinz there were lots of catsup/ketchup’s but none made from tomatoes. Mushroom catsup was popular, and I just saw an article about Philippine banana catsup! I am curious now to find non tomato ketchup and give it a whirl. Not sure how banana catsup will go on my fries, but after Poutine I am open to experimentation.
I don’t think it’s the same tree, but the Serviceberry (Amelanchier grandiflora) is farmed for its berries in Canada. My grandfather, Will Smith, developed a pink Serviceberry cultivar that is now known as the Robin Hill Shad. They are popular with city planners because they tolerate urban conditions and don’t grow taller than telephone wires. Gardeners like them because they flower early, like forsythia. Robin Hill shads flower pink, then turn white in three days.
Try Townsends.
Or, you could make your own:
Poutine…changes a man.
Looking this tree up, it sounds like quite a project to simply start, forcing sobus domestica germination. On the other hand, it sounds like they are very long lived trees, with ages beyond that of the United States. If you are in the education/research field, you might be able to get seeds from a seed bank, seeds from a few trees in the Luther Burbank Experiment Farm. There appears to be one tree farm in Oregon that has had saplings available, although not currently.
No, there is no jam or such available on Amazon, indicating how rare the demand is in America.
This is the first in the November series on the theme: “Service.”
It doesn’t grow here, as it prefers a more cool and moist climate than most of the US. It tends to be a target for all sorts of maladies, such as rot, fungus, aphids, mites, fireblight, borers…is that enough for ya?
The closest relative here is the Mountainash Sorbus americana. It prefers to grow in places like the Adirondacks, New Hampshire, Minnesota and eastern Canada. It produces loads of little orange berries that birds will devour.
The Serviceberry, Amelanchier arborea, is extremely common here, with plenty of different named cultivars that people plant because they want something, anything, that will bloom in the spring. If you want to beat back the birds you can eat the berries in June.
If you want to read funny descriptions of people eating unusual berries, pick up a copy of Michael Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants. Unless you are really into horticulture, check the reference section of your library. He says that Serviceberries taste better than highbush blueberries and can be baked into a pie, and that the berries of Sorbus aucuparia can be made into an alcoholic drink. However, his best description ever (which prompted me to plant several of them) is of the fruit of the Blackhaw Viburnum, Viburnum prunifolium:
Robin Hill is listed in Dirr. It’s the bible.
Same subtribe, but different genus. Have you ever tried the berries?
Hey, now! This isn’t the PIT!
Hey man, once a conversation starts, no telling where it’ll go. Who knows? Perhaps to the Main Feed.
Going to need more interesting stuff to get there, but I really don’t want to know about your snozzberry consumption.
Oh no?
Fine, Sam. Let your freak flag fly. Do you know what a snozzberry is?
Hey, I’m with Veruca on this one. I’d never heard of a snozzberry. It’s the creep Wonka who the Snozzberry expert.
Good point. He knows what they taste like. The pervert!
Eewww.
Yeah, stick to the mushroom ketchup.
I thought Sorbs were the Costco knockoff of Depends.
Will Smith is your grandfather?!?!?!?!?
Doesn’t look much like him, does he? I think a DNA test is in order.
Haven’t had any Sorbs, but I’ve visited some of the old Wendish churches in Texas. (The relationship between Wends and Sorbs isn’t completely clear to me, but both were Slavic islands among German-speaking people.)
They call themselves “Serbja.” They used to call what we know as the Serbs as the South Serbs.
Since the theme for this month is “service,” I should point out that connection. Wikipedia says that the English word slave (a type of servant) was derived from the word “Slav” after many of the Slavic people had been captured and made slaves during medieval times. But that’s not what the term “Slav” originally meant. Sorbs and Serbs are Slavs.
Oh, and Wends are Sorbs, but not necessarily the other way around. Lusatians are also Sorbs. Not to be confused with the Lusitanians, of course.
I’m glad you said “not necessarily” because it means I can keep saying that the relationship is not completely clear to me.
I’m here to please. The Dukes of Mecklenburg were of Wendish descent. So, Queen Charlotte, George III’s wife was Wendish. And all the British monarchs since George III were of Wendish descent.
Norm!