Frank Krygowski writes:

On 5/28/2020 10:52 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 8:53:38 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 5:38:47 PM UTC-5, wrote:

[...]

I like Paydays, but you can inhale peanuts while riding hard, and
they're not that easy to digest. And if I'm going to eat a
peanut-containing candy bar on the bike, it will be a Snickers. Much
higher energy. Food of the Pro Tour. But Donettes are my preferred
junk, assuming I run out of jersey food (Cliff Bar, GU pack). If I
run out of food riding during the mid-summer, I just eat black
berries. They're everywhere in the PNW.

For a glorious week or so very soon, we should have mulberry trees
full of berries, which are my favorite "found" snack while cycling.

I don't know how common these are in other areas. I once came across a
thicket of them in Iowa, but nowhere else I remember. I've been told
they are more common here because some of our many Italian immigrants
loved them.

An alternative theory is that they're descendants of a mulberry craze
in Connecticut in the early 1800s. Our area was, pre-1776, part of
Connecticut, according to Connecticut's charter. (That was disputed by
Virginia.) The "Connecticut Western Reserve" was retained by that
state for a while when the Northwest Ordinance made Ohio a
possibility. So this area was first settled by folks from Connecticut.

Red mulberries are native to eastern North America, white to China, and
black mulberries to western Asia, where they are a traditional food.
White mulberries were imported in some places to support silkworm
culture. Hybrids are common.

Mulberries are tasty, sweet and very messy. About this time of year
I'll return home from a ride with dark blue stains on my gloves and
cycling shoes.

Lots of mulberry trees and bushes here, they are one of the early
colonizers in disturbed ground. We get berries starting around the
fourth of July. I eat them. I find that Massachusetts mulberries are by
no means as sweet as New Mexico mulberries, but they survive without
irrigation.