Ten years ago, when I was 12, a gaggle of friends gathered in a circle at summer camp in Vermont and organized ourselves into categories, each with its own implications and secret connotations. This time the question was: what fruit would you be?

The sunnier among us said “Peach!” and “Strawberry!” The edgy girl said she’d be a dragonfruit.

I said I’d be a blackberry: dark and sweet and not exactly unpopular; let’s say, instead, maybe a little unknowable.

They’re not so hard to get to know here on the Outer Cape, though. I’ve been on the lookout for the blackberries that show up on the sides of roads and sometimes in purposeful patches in gardens and back yards. The blackberries aren’t quite ready yet — they’re best in late July and August. But their cousin, the black raspberry, comes of age a little earlier.

Black raspberries are hollow in the middle, the way raspberries are, but they’re less sour than the red ones. They’re smaller and seedier than the blackberry, so baking with them means being prepared for a little crunch.

I set out on a humid, mist-soaked morning for my friend Edouard Fontenot’s house in Truro. A patch of black raspberries grows in a tangle against a grassy hill behind his house. My ankles and wrists were sticky with bug spray. I dabbed the stuff on my face, too, for good measure. The mosquitoes were unperturbed by the bug spray. Spurred by their chilling whine, I plunged my arms into the thorny mess, plucking berries with a frantic sort of determination.

Once I had about two cups worth, I ran to the car and leapt in without so much as a proper goodbye. If you’re reading this, Edouard: thank you.

Pies are hard — my mother told me that a long time ago. Now that I’m 22, I listen to my mother, so I made a torte. In this case, a rustic one made with cornmeal instead of flour. The recipe, which I found in my grandmother’s recipe box, was evidently clipped from the pages of Gourmet magazine in August 2000 — at least, that’s the date visible on the bottom corner of the clipping. The recipe calls for blackberries. I’m sure they would be fine, but I’ve moved on to black raspberries.

Now that I’m a little more grown up than I was in that blackberry year at summer camp, I feel a certain kinship with the black raspberry. We can both be dressed up into something that’s not exactly cake. And because I have an identical twin sister, I know how it feels to be mistaken for another. Now, if anyone wants to know, if I were a fruit, I’d be a black raspberry.

After an hour in the oven, the torte emerged with a less-than-photogenic brown top. But appearances can be deceiving. Cut into the cake and the berries reveal themselves, sunken to the bottom in a wild-tasting, jammy huddle.

This cake requires a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, in my opinion.

TRURO BLACK RASPBERRY TORTE 

1 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
1½ tsp. baking powder
⅛ tsp. salt
4 oz. unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar (plus 1 Tbsp. for top)
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 pint (2 cups) black raspberries
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
½ tsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350° F and stir together cornmeal, baking powder, and salt.
2. Beat butter and one cup sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in cornmeal mixture, then beat in eggs and vanilla and spread batter in a buttered 9-inch glass or ceramic pie plate or gratin dish.
3. Toss berries with lemon juice and strew over batter. Mix remaining tablespoon of sugar with cinnamon and sprinkle over the berries.
4. Bake about one hour, until top is crusty. The berries will sink to the bottom and get jammy. Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream on top.