July 15, 2012.
Someone in the family was making something with blueberries, and said the blueberries were rather tart. I am no expert in these things, but I wish to give my opinion. I apologize if I am wrong.
I feel that the blueberries were tart because they weren't fully ripe. They look so gorgeous, and it appears that they are ripe, but as they get riper, they lose some of their solidity and are likely to get squashed in the pail or basket. The more ripe they are, the less sugar you will need. But completely ripe or not, blueberries are so delicious and so full of beneficial nutrients, that we are fortunate to have them to eat. They are one of the best foods ever.
"Pickin' blueberries, pickin' blueberries, ... " is a song, I've heard Bill and the kids singing it. The song is full of fun. He wrote it for his children in nineteen-ninety five.
Picking blueberries is really a lot of fun if there aren't any bears about, or rattlesnakes to watch out for. When my siblings and I were growing up, our parents took us with them to pick blueberries. We were living in Springville, and we went to New Milford about 45 minutes away, up in the open hilly area where there were many wild huckleberry bushes. They were called huckleberries, because they were wild and not cultivated, and also somewhat smaller than the current cultivated blueberries.
Rattlesnakes, and some bears, live there in the hills. We went up into the 'wilds' on crooked little paths, up and down little inclines and declines, toward the plentiful blueberry bushes. We were told not to wander away from our parents. We began to pick berries, and we found they are quite easy to pick. You just pick the larger dark blue berries and not the lighter colored, or even green ones that hadn't begun to ripen yet. They grow in small clumps on the twigs with leaves.
We were having our fill of blueberries as we picked. My Dad and my Mom had bigger pails than we did, and when our little pails would become halfway full, we would dump them into our parents' large pails. (Our pails must have taken a long time to get half full, with our eating those yummy berries!)
When it was time to go back home, as the cows' udders were getting filled, we began 'trekking' those curvy, rocky, little paths way down to the car. All of a sudden, my Dad tripped over an especially unsmooth path, and some of his berries happened to get onto the ground - imagine! He felt so bad when he spilled them. We all tried as best as we could, to pick most of them up, and then went on home.
During the next few days, we had blueberry pie, and my Mom made a small batch of blueberry jam. We even had blueberries with milk, in a bowl. We squashed the berries with the tines of a fork, poured some milk over them, and the most beautiful color appeared! We always liked that magic!
Those were the days, weren't they, of having delicious food made with several kinds of berries that we picked. We found blackberries in our woods, and we would gather so many for our Mom to make some canned blackberries, or jam, or even jelly, for the winter.
There were also some red raspberries which were so tasty, and black raspberries which were known as 'black caps'. I loved those the best! We would squash the black caps in a little bowl, add milk, and there was a good color! I thought it was even more fascinating than that of blackberries! The flavor of squashed black caps with milk is very delicious! Or any kind of berry, for that matter!
We found some gooseberries on the hillside pasture on our little Springville farm, and picked them. There weren't many wild bushes of those, so we didn't make jam or jelly with them. One day I was picking some of those gooseberries and suddenly I noticed a snake skin lying in the bush, which startled me so much! I thought at first that it was a snake. No, it was just the skin of the snake, that comes off when it has outgrown its skin. Did you know that this happens? It was quite a surprise to me.
I'll see you at the Corner Post...
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