Amelanchier berries

 

Adding this photo to my wild fruit page and should also say a few words as this is one of our most spectacular wild fruits when ripening. Sometimes there can be numerous trees with plenty of these white, red and purplish blue berries which are very showy. These Amelanchier berries are also quite tasty especially when cooked in pies, scones and muffins.

We have around 20 different varieties of Amelanchiers here, one with a miniature American football shape which I enjoy seeing and eating. Amelanchiers vary in size from a foot high plant to 25 foot trees. Amelanchier berries are not commonly gathered in the Maritimes though in the Prairie Provinces it is an old favorite which goes by the name of Saskatoon berries. Hope you folks get a chance to see this member of the rose family one day in all its glory in a moist thicket, you’ll be pleased.

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Lowbush Blueberries

Super short post on a Maritime wild food favorite, low bush blueberries which tend to grow well in sandy acidic soils, usually dry ones.

Often around this time of the year wild mushrooms are my focus, but with a very dry July in my neck of the woods blueberries came through as a nice alternative which will be much appreciated this winter in many ways. Blueberries are great in desserts and are surprisingly attractive and tasty good in soups, casseroles, etc.

I claimed it was a super short post so I’ll end with the above photo which stirred the stream of thoughts of these lucky blueberries enjoying some lovely shade under a canopy of pleasant scented sweet fern, at a restful blueberry resort right here in New Brunswick 🙂

Wild Roses Are Pretty Hip

Going to add a few photos to my wild fruit page so I thought it would be a good time for a short post as well.

Wild Rose hips are one of the most Vita rich foods we have on this planet and we have quite a few varieties growing wild right here in the Maritime provinces.

Most of our native roses have rather small hips which turns out to be not a bad thing as you can eat the whole hip with seeds included which gives you plenty of Vit C and Vit E and much more in this healing food. Word of caution though, some may find the seeds hard on their teeth.

If you do not want to eat them raw there are plenty of recipes, teas, soups, jellies etc available on the net.

I should also mention our native wild roses are a healthy food you can gather the entire Fall season and even well into the winter. Even if you don’t want to eat them, I hope you enjoyed seeing them and will take note of their brightness this Fall and Winter on your travels. ciao

Mountain Ash

I haven’t tried making anything with Mountain Ash berries for several years now, last attempt was a marmalade which I didn’t enjoy much. Seeing this snow covered tree has kind of rekindled my interest in these berries and this photo will be entered in my wild fruit page with a summer view of another type of Mountain Ash as we have many different types here in the Maritimes and to be fair to this fruit I really should start tasting the (cooked) fruits from several varieties as some of our friends in NFLD found out long ago when they discovered a sweet one they favor for gathering.

Maybe I’ll try making a beverage with ginger this time around as I’ve seen recipes for jams with ginger and citrus fruit combos, ideally an early harvest would provide a less mushy berry, but now is always the right time if you missed the best time. he he

Bunchberries, the fastest slow food

A few pics and a couple links to some interesting stuff on a like known ground growing fruit, common throughout most of Canada, bunchberries – Cornus Canadensis.

The large seed in each drupe is the main reason this is not a popular fruit in this country today where we have many different types of berries which are much easier to eat in a social setting though bunchberries do have their charm, one is you can pick a large amount in no time, they also stay in good shape to pick for several weeks if not months.

The berries which I gathered here in the pics made a rather nice sauce, 8 cups of berries brought to a boil with a bit of water then simmered , seeds strained out, it takes some time to work the pulp away from the seeds but in the end with some sugar and cinnamon it turned into a smoky thick grape colored sauce.

The sauce quite tasty, but the most interesting thing I found was the soothing feeling I noticed on the mouth and throat, never experienced this in a sauce before, so something healthy in that pulp I suspect.  I also tried squeezing the pulp of the raw fruit, dripping it through a strainer to test if it would jell up some as I was hoping to dry it after jelling to use as a dry fruit candy but that didn’t pan out at all – as the pulp was in to small amounts per work and it stayed to liquidity.

Here is a photo of a bunchberry flower I took early on when I started this blog a few years ago and a couple links to some info on this older than the hills, little eaten today, fast moving smoothie. http://www.williams.edu/go/explodingflower

and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFR17bX0noI

 

Forager’s Mobiles

There are 3 different types of Highbush Cranberries in the province of New Brunswick and these ones we see dangling above my head are the best edible one in my vicinity being Viburnum trilobum which grows usually near streams and river floodplains. These berry clusters are extremely easy to gather in nature’s nursery though the processing into juice can seem lengthy unless you really enjoy getting to know your food. Each berry has one large seed and it is best to juice these berries raw after freezing them.

Back to a view of these berries hanging gently in the sky above, what I’ll be doing with them once juiced isn’t quite clear just yet though an apple cider -Highbush cranberry mix sounds good and possibly a ginger bug Highbush soda, though these are just little thought clouds appearing amongst the clusters at this point. ciao