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
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