How Are Barberry Berries Used?

The barberry is not only suitable as a decorative hedge in the garden: the berries of the thorny shrub can also be eaten. Barberries can be used to make jam or vinegar. They are also suitable as a spice or can be eaten pure when dried. However, only the berries of the common barberry may be consumed without hesitation. All other parts of the bush, as well as the berries of other species of sour thorn, are poisonous.

Like other berries, the fruits of the common barberry can be cooked into jam. A barberry jelly, for example, is made by boiling the berries in water, pressing them through a sieve, and collecting the juice. 500 milliliters of barberry juice is then boiled with 500 milliliters of apple juice and one kilo of jam sugar to make a jelly.

If you want to use the berries pure, you should dry them – they then have a slightly sour taste and can be used like raisins. Dried barberries, for example, taste great as a spice in oriental rice dishes to which raisins would otherwise be added. To do this, simmer the appropriately seasoned long-grain rice and add the berries just before the rice is done. Then let it simmer for a few more minutes. In Persian cuisine, barberry rice is known as sereshk polo. Chicken or lamb tastes good with barberry rice.

Vinegar can also be made from the berries of the barberry. To prepare a barberry vinegar, the fresh berries are placed in a bottle of wine vinegar and left in a dark place for one to two weeks, turning occasionally. Then you remove the berries from the bottle – for example through a sieve – and the now brownish vinegar can be used for cooking as desired.

The berries are also suitable for preparing liqueur. To do this, put 500 grams of barberries with around 200 grams of sugar and 700 milliliters of vodka or rum in a mixing vessel and season the mixture as you like – with a vanilla pod, for example. The mixture is left airtight for three months and shaken from time to time. When the sugar has completely dissolved, the fruit can be strained out and the drink can be bottled.