Tomorrow night — Thursday, August 11 — if you look up in the sky, you’ll see the Blueberry Moon, also known as the Sturgeon Moon.
We are indeed smack in the middle of blueberry season, as we are smack in the middle of summer. My favorite blueberries, which don’t last long, are the low-bush berries often called “wild.” Nationally, these tiny blue pearls are associated with Maine. Locally, they are associated with Heath.
There the high elevation suits these small fruits from small plants. To me, Heath blueberries taste sweeter than their low-land, high-bush counterparts.
I may be wrong about the sweetness; after all, taste is highly subjective. I grew up with a mother who frequently repeated, “Wild blueberries are sweeter than the big, cultivated ones.” She may have brainwashed me.
I was once at a dinner party with a scientist who studied the physiology of taste. He told me that each person’s palate is individual; we have no way of knowing exactly what a food tastes like to another person.
Nevertheless, I know that in these hills reside plenty of people who adore the low-bush berries. Most of my neighbors buy these precious fruits in bulk and freeze them to eat and use year round.
These little wild berries are native to North America and have been consumed here for thousands of years. They were probably served at the “First Thanksgiving” in Plimoth in 1621.
A classic Wampanoag dish that may have been used then, according to the Plimoth/Patuxet Museums, is Nasaump, a pudding made with cornmeal, berries, nuts, and maple syrup.
In canned form low-bush berries helped save Union troops from scurvy during the Civil War. According to the New England Historical Society, the berries also helped save a number of canneries in the northeastern United States.
These establishments had been canning sardines, which enjoyed a thriving market in the antebellum South.
When the war broke out, the factories switched over to canning blueberries. The canned blueberries didn’t just help the nutrient-starved soldiers; they also helped cultivate a market for blueberries beyond New England.
Of course, once the little, wild berries go by, I happily buy larger berries. Larger cultivated berries are late comers to the food scene.
They were first developed at the turn of the last century. Farmer Elizabeth Coleman White of New Jersey teamed up with botanist James Coville. Originally a cranberry farmer, White wanted to branch out.
The pair experimented on White’s farm, where wild blueberries flourished between the cranberry bogs, and eventually developed high-bush blueberries. Blueberries are the official state fruit of New Jersey.
Whether high- or low-bush, blueberries aren’t just delicious. They’re good for our eyesight, our hearts, and our brains.
They are also low in calories … unless you turn them into ice cream, which of course I just did! The recipe below comes from my friend Ed Sourdiffe.
Ed is a master gardener who works as a teacher and a consultant. He is known as the “Green Thumb Guru.” Ed makes the ice cream with high-bush blueberries. I make it with low-bush ones. It’s delicious either way.
Ingredients:
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup half and half
1 cup heavy cream
Instructions:
Puree the blueberries in a blender.
Place the pureed blueberries and the sugar in a saucepan and warm the combination, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. (This takes very little time.)
Let the blueberry mixture come to room temperature; then refrigerate it for at least 6 hours.
Stir in the vanilla, the salt, the milk, the half and half, and the cream. Combine thoroughly so that the blue color spreads throughout the white liquid.
Pour the blueness into an ice cream maker and churn. If you are using the kind of ice-cream maker that has a frozen insert, start the machine before pouring in the liquid and pour through the future ice cream into the hole in the top.
Once the ice cream is semi-solid, freeze it for 6 to 8 hours (or overnight) to allow it to set. If you cannot resist eating it right away, that is not only understandable but perfectly acceptable; you’ll have a soft-serve version of this treat. The extended freezing does help achieve perfect consistency, however.
Serves 6.
Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning author and singer. Her next book will be “Pot Luck: Random Acts of Cooking.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.