Check out my Hackberry article on Atlas Obscura: www.atlasobscura.com/foods/hackberry-fruit-that-tastes-like-candy

I had a 30+ year old hackberry tree in my backyard until a tornado destroyed it. It was my favorite tree I never tried the berries because I didn't know that they were edible. Now I'm even more mad about the tornado. Thankfully, there are some younger hackberry trees growing further out in our yard that are probably old enough to produce berries. Meanwhile, my mulberry tree got knocked down in the same tornado and part of it is still alive and producing berries. I was always told that mulberry trees are hardy but I didn't know they were _that_ hardy.

They may not be very substantial but I like them for the tea/rasin flavor, and all the songbirds love them c: Maybe one day someone will develop a variety with larger fruits!

I actually had a lot of hackberry trees where I worked but didn’t know what they were and I freaked out when one of my buddies popped it in his mouth

“No.” - Jarred, 2018

The hackberry tree and its leaves strongly resemble elm, and that's as big as the berries ever get here in the Arkansas Ozarks. The berry consists only of a hard seed covered by skin. The skin is sweet and resembles dates in flavor. I suppose if you could gather a very large number of them and cook them down, they would make a rather pleasant sweet beverage. There's hardly anything to it and it's hardly worth the trouble, but I'm glad you got to sample it for yourself.

My mom is 85 n she told me about these years ago. She grew up in Missouri as a kid and said they were ok but instead they picked em and feed to their geese..just my 2 cents...

Definitely love hackberries too. I'm also growing a cousin of the hackberry called the Lotus Berry which grows a larger berry.

The berries on my Hackberry tree in the front yard just started to turn reddish & I tried the first one today. Definitely fun to eat since I tend to like chewing on hard things like pen caps. I ate it with the skin on & just rolled it around & between my teeth until the fruit was gone. They're good for when you're bored munching since there's not much to them, but I couldn't crunch my seeds like you did... Mine almost tasted like and apple.

"Clean your fingers! No!" LOL!

Hackberries are my winter snack here in Minnesota. Helps motivate me to take a walk. There are very few hackberry trees that have branches low enough to eat from and I walk to one and pick a bunch of fruits. I put a few in my mouth at a time and scrape the sweetness off them. I have sometimes crunched the seed to try to taste the kernel, but it ends up shattering and then I have to take a lot of time spitting out the little hard bits of shell, like pieces of bone. I just wish more big old mature hackberries in my area had low branches with fruits that I can reach.

I had no idea I had two of these trees in my backyard until I used an identification app (to identify weeds) and it indicated the 20-30 yr old tree producing 1000s of these berries in my backyard was in fact a gem! I think they taste like tea and sweetened cranberry or pomegranate. Now I understand why a family of cardinals keeps hanging out in my backyard in the spring and winter. FYI, you can grind the seeds and make an almond milk like drink. The whole fruit including the seed is very nutritious though eating the seed-and-all can be like eating really tasty sand, sorta like eating guava with the seeds.

Man! .. I did the right choice subscribing to your channel few years ago. Your video notification popped up as I was about to search for an interesting relaxing fun video to watch! , thanks for uploading.

It reminds me of an M&M, but a candy shell with a seed instead of chocolate inside. Didn't know the seed was edible too..

the shell is the m&m part, the shell is sweet and crunchy like m&ms

Hackberry trees are really common here in Texas. I tried some as a kid, but definitely didn't like them. I've never thought of them as edible. I've been told hackberry wood was once commonly uses for baseball bats.

if they were commercialized they would be the size of a watermelon and taste like sweet tea.

One note: The berries might be attractive but don't plant these trees near houses or other structures, they are spindly and have a weak root system and will come down in severe weather. A tornado went through here earlier this year and a whole lot of these hackberry trees ended up on houses, cars, streets, etc, while many sturdier trees remained standing.

Hahahah the clean your finger nails makes me crack's up when you say no"! Hahahahhaah just like me🤣🤣🤣🤣👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Interesting fact, hackberry is considered an excellent bow wood. Haven't used it yet myself, but from what the experts say. It can be heat treated to add compression strength. Supposed to have a decent velocity. Not sure about the grain orientation or growth ring size.

hackberries are fantastic! I crush them finely for a sweet/nutty seasoning or topping, coarse for salads

Mmm, marbels. Love eating marbels. I hear it's good for the teeth! Lol thanks for the review. Just moved into a place that apparently has these. I bet you could make tea from the berries. Hawthorn is what I thought of when you crushed the shell. I bet they could be used to ferment wines, meads, and vinegar as well.

The little flesh is very tasty on hackberry. The sugar berry is a very small fruit, that is sweet and tasty. Thanks for the reminder, because I have to get another tree to pollinate the one I have. They grow locally about 10 miles from here. I gathered and planted the seed and transplanted to my yard.

I live in south Texas. We have more hack berry trees then anything in my town!!!

Your fruits channel is awesome.

Shout out from the U.K. keep em coming. Love these vids. Cheers!

Seeing this reminds me. When I was a kid, there was these small plants with waxy leafs, and small bright red fruit. The plants were never more than three inches high, and the fruit was smaller than the Hack berry. But the flavor is intense. The best I could compare it to is Spearmint, but so medicinie. I thought it was spearmint, but just looked it up. Spearmint, is mint. I've seen them my whole life, or at least when my head was closer to the ground. I will go looking this summer Small berry, large taste.

And yes I know Clean your fingernails, clean your finger nails NO 😂😂

Plot twist Jared is a seed

Neat! I’d love to hear if other people have tried this fruit! I’m curious why it gained the reputation of being candy-like or an m&m.

This is wild. Im a forester, I see hackberries like daily... Why have i never eaten one. Im gonna do more research first before eating. But this is insane.

One of your videos popped up on my home page the other day and a few videos later, I’ve subscribed. Here in Oklahoma, I believe we have three species. I have two on my 35 acres. Celtis occidentalis is just like the one you reviewed. But I also have C. laevigata that has larger berries with proportionally more flesh. Another reason I prefer C. laevigata is the bark is much more textured. I also have what seem to be hybrids between the two species, which is common. A few years ago I attended a talk about how the Native Americans used several plants, including hackberry. Just like acorns, the Celtis trees have years where they produce a bunch of fruit and then several years with barely any fruit. Last year was a production year and I wish I had known about the non production years, because I would have tried to save some. A lot of critters like to eat the Celtis trees and they’re known for being ravaged by galls. It rarely hurts the tree long term, and some of the gall mites and midges haven’t even been named yet. The hackberry emperor butterfly is my second favorite butterfly. It’s a drab brown overall but with an intricate pattern, and an endearing habit of hanging out on people to lick the salt off your skin. The next time we have a production year, I’ll let you know.

We have a couple of hackberry species (Celtis laevigata and Celtis reticulata) native to my area and both taste mildly sweet, with a big seed that kind of adds a chalky feel to them. I've sometimes seen the species called Desert Hackberry (Celtis ehrenbergiana) used culinarily; it has more pulp than most of them.

I’ve actually never had C. occidentalis. In Greece and Turkey C. australis is common. The berries are almost black and a little (only a little) thicker on the seed, and are very much like date flesh when ripe and fresh. My neighbor in Istanbul, a retired Archaeology professor, is working on a dig in Anatolia; they found piles and piles of hackberry seeds. The site is so old that they don’t even know who the people were, but they know that hackberries were an important item in their diet!

If I wasn’t poor I’d give you money. You provide so much information!!!

I would like to try this fruit.... Thanks for sharing this review with us....

I am growing one of the fruits on your intro. It's called apple melon (in English).

Thanks for the video! I bought a house with a hackberry tree in the yard a while back and just got around to identifying it a couple days ago. Been following your channel for a while so was happy to see you already had a video on the hackberry. The tree is ginormous though so I don't think I'll really be able to access any of the fruit but it is cool to know that it is edible and quite tasty.

Just rode my bike by a Hackberry tree full of fruit (seems to be a bumper crop this year). Small but tasty!

The first time I ever had rooibos (red bush tea), my first reaction was, "It tastes like hackberries!" Unfortunately, I've found most of the rooibos that I can buy isn't that fresh or high quality, though. If I could figure out a way to make tea from hackberries, I'd be set up.

Great video man. Asmr like tone, calm. You should do vids like this more

I eat these when walking or working in the woods but never ate the seeds, only the meager fruit that covers it which tastes a lot like dates after they dry up a little. It would be great if someone found one in the wild that had a nice thick fruit covering the seed.

Hi, I grow celits tala, I got some plants one month ago so I didnt tasted yet, but all the people that ate it said it is very good... and no one ate the seed...

*Hecc* Berry

The ones I've had in southern Ontario have a nectary pineapple flavour and a fair amount of pulp on the outside of the fruit. The seeds themselves are teeth-breakingly hard and the inside is relatively flavourless. Shows the difference between regions! Or maybe just trees.

Dude these things grow all over the place in colorado. they taste so good!

Celtis trees are also very difficult to kill, and they germinate very easily, making them a noxious weed in many parts of the world.

The hackberries I've seen (at least I've been told that's what they were) were about 3 times as big, about the size of a grape. Tried it, weird aftertaste, not a fan. Didn't get sick either.

20K!

Not sure if these are available in Australia but I swear I use to eat something very similar when I was a kid, orange yellowy inside and strange taste, more bitter from memory, or starchy even. But was told they were poisonous of course and stop by my mum hahah

They are good agree

I've been a plant nerd and wilderness survival nerd since I was 10, and I'm ashamed to say I've never tried a hackberry. I've had plenty of pawpaw, American persimmon, black haw, Rubus berries, rose hips, etc.. There are some small fruits like this (also multiflora rose and that edible asian dogwood fruit) that I secretly wish could be bred into the size of a golf ball or bigger.

Now I want a hackberry cookie.

Celtis Occidentalis grows everywhere here in Ohio but I've never seen them produce fruit in my entire life.

Celtis australis from Europe is also sweet. City pigeons fight over them. In Portugal we call them Saint Antonio's cherries

Cool stuff! I'd try em. Did you say this was sent from Morgan's Garden Apiary? Got a link? Edit: Oh Marvin's garden? I think I found it

hello, i cant seem to find this wonderful fruit. where should i go too?

Hackberry what a great name for a fruit that you should eat if it isn't venomous. And how much disease does it spread to other plants that you grow in your yard. I was going to grow currents before I read that they spread disease to blackberries and stuff like that and some places don't even allow their import...... So what kind of disease does a Hackberry spread if it isn't a venomous plant... Must be fun getting a recipe for a Hackberry pie when you have to peel them all

By the way you’ll start dealing with insects like @loganmatt more. Just Ignore those moths. You’re great flame will attract them my boy just keep doing you

What you have there is what grows on our hackberry trees here. Have you tried sand plums yet?

They taste like dates. You can eat the seed if you want to.

Clean your fingernails - clean your fingernails - YES!!

Fun fact: Hackberry is in the same family as cannabis

and they said candies dont grow on trees

Ever wonder if he collects all the seeds of these fruits?

have you ever tried texas persimmon ?

I always thought they taste like licorice

My hero, "Clean your fingernails." *"NO."*

Put them on ice cream for extra crunchiness

Have you received any fruits from outside the US in the mail? There must be some sort of regulations on importing fruits with seeds or roots into the country. Just curious.

I found some hackberry seed fossils in the badlands Shhh don’t tell anybody I’m not supposed to have any

I was eating it when I was young and it was black

U tried winterberries

That flesh tastes like a Fig Newton. Why you brushing it away?

Cool. But will it ketchup?

can uou make a tea out of them, if so, how

This could also be misconstrued as a suicide vid as him acting innocent like it was accident that he ate a venomous Hackberry....6:09 "it's got something a little special to it"....arsenic? Just kidding I've heard so many stories about little berries growing in the wild as being poisonous and don't ever eat them. But I've been looking for something to add to my berry bush collection since I can't plant currants now.

*hack* berry

That looks more like choke, cherry

Imma be honest, these might be a nice snack. But I think anybody would be upset if you put them *instead of* chocolate chips. Oatmeal raisin cookies are still the biggest betrayal. But it might be an interesting sweetener and spice

could you make tea please ?

Taste nothing like black tea

Even the name *hack* berry That someone hack the tree to make a Candy

Now I'm just sad my Hackberry is a dude.

Man I love your videos, but your music brings me down sometimes.

now that I have your fingerprint... all I need is your credit card number and I can send you an amazing fruit from Mars... just sign here and write your social security number and you can be the first to try this Martian fruit... hahahaha

if you don't want to clean your fingernails you can just keep them clipped short

Clean your fingernails.

Clean your fingernails...please?