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Wild blueberries - painstakingly delicious

5 years ago

It’s wild blueberry season in my part of Maine. They grow in untended fields everywhere. They are much shorter and smaller than highbush blueberries and therefore a pain to pick. They are also sweeter and more flavorful than their larger cousins. I do have some young highbush blueberries as well - but they don’t produce much yet.

There is a tool called a rake that can be used to pick them faster. However our fields are full of weeds so anytime saved is spent cleaning. Plus the berries get beat up. So I plop myself in the field and handpick. My best year I picked 35 pounds. This year I hope to get about half that.

As well as enjoying them fresh I love to freeze them. Using them for cake, pancakes pancakes, pie, sorbet or most commonly on my morning oatmeal.

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carolb_w_fl_coastal_9/10

5 years ago

Lucky you! This post made me think of the book 'Blueberries For Sal'

And Trader Joe's sells frozen wild blueberries, for those of us without access to fresh ones...

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Comments (6)

Elizabeth
5 years ago
My part of Michigan grows blueberries also. In fact I live not far from a commercial blueberry farm. They put grocery store blueberries to shame. They are hard to pick, clean and freeze but so worth it. I have to make room in my freezer to lay the rimmed cookie sheets out for freezing. It's kind of funny not letting them roll away on me!
nancyjane_gardener
5 years ago
Nice!
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I've had wild blueberries and I've had cultivated blueberries. I've found that the local berries which I pick myself at the U-pick places taste delicious, and that flavor varies from variety to variety. I usually go from bush to bush tasting until I find the ones I like. The huge ones seem to have less flavor, usually. Grocery store berries are the bottom of the heap, usually, like the ones I have today which are from Washington. By the time they are picked, packaged, shipped and sold, they aren't optimal. The fresh, locally grown ones, just picked? Oh yeah, a different thing altogether. I haven't picked yet this year, I'd better get moving or it'll be too late! I have cinnamon for blueberry crisp, lemon for blueberry muffins, no spice at all for pancakes, pies or jam. It's all good. Annie
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I use commercially grown blueberries in lots of things - muffins, pancakes, coffee cakes, on cereal or in yoghurt, mixed with other berries with just a bit of sugar. My favorite is wild blueberries - the kind one picks in MA or ME. One never shares the secret of a "found patch". My late husband's parent's cook had her favorite patch on Chappaquiddick where their house was. She would have my FIL drive her out to North Neck Rd and leave her - she didn't even want HIM to know where "her patch" was! He'd come back in about an hour and Ruth would be standing there with a small bucket full of berries. She then make a blueberry pie for dinner that night, homemade crust and all. Oh my, but that woman had a delicate touch with a pie crust! Served warm with a bit of vanilla ice cream...ambrosia. I miss that big smile on her face when she saw how happy this made us all. Such a special woman.... She's buried in the family plot with my in-laws and my husband. I'll join her there someday in the not too distant future.
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Here's the yogurt muffin recipe: Oven at 375 1 c. plain yogurt (not Greek) 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 c. butter 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 2 c flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 c sugar 3/4 c something to mix in (fruit, choc chips, nuts, whatever) Preheat oven to 375 Grease muffin tin and set aside. In a bowl mix yogurt and baking soda. Set aside. In a large bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. In another bowl, beat butter Add eggs one at a tie, then vanilla. Add to flour mix. Then add yogurt mix stirring just until combined. Stir in your mix in. Put in muffin tin and bake about 20 min or until done. Can also add topping such as 2 Tb chopped walnut, 2 Tb brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon mixed together. Some of my favorite combos: lemon poppy seed; apple cinnamon and walnut; blueberry; orange peel and cranberry; and of course mini choc chips.
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sleevendog (5a NY 6aNYC NL CA)
5 years ago
We love them as well. They grow wild in our yard and all over the hiking trails in Newfoundland. Traveling home through NovaScotia, then Maine, in season, we pick up a few flats roadside for the freezer. So good. (open your border crossings Canada!) 😜
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
5 years ago
Some time ago, we traveled to Maine.

One day walking into the woods and we came upon a field of delicious looking blueberries. There was a big sign next to a locked box that said:

"Organic heirloom rare blueberries. Pick yourself. Eat as much as you can while picking. One bag $20. Please deposit into the box below. We trust the honor system Thank you"

The three of us each picked a bag full. As we walked further, we realized those were wild blueberries which were everywhere and belong to nobody.

Some wise A$$ put up that sign and the box and cheated us city slickers $60 bucks!

dcarch :-(
agmss15 thanked dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
caflowerluver
5 years ago
I miss wild blueberries. The ones you get at the store have no flavor in comparison. I grew up on 40 acres in western Mass covered with wild blueberries. One of the chores we 5 kids had to do was to pick the blueberries during blueberry season. Of course we ate our fill while picking. My dad said it was our job because we were shorter than adults and easier for us to pick the berries from the low growing bushes. With promises of blueberry muffins, pies, cobbler, pancakes and jam, we didn't mind.
agmss15 thanked caflowerluver

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