Blubes, Glorious Blubes…What More Could I Ask For?

I am a blueberry man. As long as I can remember they have been my absolute favorite fruit, and even a favorite food. Most of the more common favorites, your apples or melons or bananas, cannot compete for my taste with the sweet succulence of the blueberry. Raspberries, blackberries, and of course, strawberries usually round out the top three of people’s favorite berries. Not me. Blueberries will always be my number 1. I have been known to down a pint in under 2 minutes. Small in stature but huge in flavor, with a deep, wine-dark blue rarely found in other foods, blueberries are special, and Maine specializes in them.

Glorious blueberriess, or as Thoreau called them, "the ambrosia of the gods." Photo by Claire Briguglio

Glorious hand picked wild blueberries, or as Thoreau called them, “the ambrosia of the gods.” Photo by Claire Briguglio

Native Americans have harvested blueberries for hundreds of years or more, since blueberries are one of the few fruits native to North America. Maine wild blueberries come in a few varieties. The low blueberry,Vaccinium angustifolium, is the most common wild blueberry in Maine. The highbush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum, gently hugs the shorelines of lakes and ponds. The sourtop blueberry, Vaccinium myrtilloides favors mountains and hills and is most likely to satiate you at the summit of a peak. Learn more with this handy UMaine factsheet from blueberry specialist (dream job) David E. YarboroughWild blueberries are big business in Maine; 44,000 acres of blueberry barrens rake in around $250 million annually, making Maine the largest producer of wild blueberries in the world, according to the UMaine Cooperative Extension.

Honestly, the flavor, texture, and fun of eating the berries is what keeps me coming back, but I would be remiss not to mention the berries’ wonderful health benefits. Wild blueberries contain more antioxidants than 20 other fruits. Antioxidants are our friends that protect our bodies from diseases including cancer, heart disease and the effects of aging. They also help memory. One serving of blubes contain large amounts of fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, and manganese. And they taste great!

Robert McCloskey’s classic, Blueberries for Sal, was a favorite bedtime story of my early youth, and it inculcated in me a strong love for blueberries. How fitting that I write on blueberries today a mere 30 miles from Scott Island, off the coast of Deer Isle, where McCloskey spent his summers and likely made the setting for his fictional “blueberry hill.” Maine is blessed with hills, and late July and August in Maine turns every hill in the state into blueberry hill. All the better for blueberry aficionados. Tortured was I to hike the trails of Acadia or the small peaks of Holbrook Island Sanctuary here on Cape Rosier, for weeks and weeks with nary a blueberry in sight, only green, unripened, sour proto-berries. Then BAM, it hits and the blueberries ripen and all the fields are as blue as the sky and the sea, united in hue at last.

MY happy place is a field of wild blueberries on a beautiful summer day in Maine

My happy place is a field of wild blueberries on a beautiful summer day in Maine

Blueberries for centuries have delighted and satiated the backwoods hiker, offering that special forest treat. Thoreau, along with a friend and a Native American guide named Joe Polis, explored the Maine Woods in their famed attempt to summit Katahdin in the 1850s. Along the way he wrote, “Blueberries were distributed along our whole route; and in one place the bushes were drooping with the weight of the fruit, still as fresh as ever…Such patches afforded a grateful repast, and served to bait the tired party forward. When any lagged behind, the cry of “blueberries” was most effectual to bring them up.”

Blueberry season is upon us, so get out of the house and onto the trail. Now it is time to get to work. Harvest them yourself. No more $5 grocery store pints of pesticide addled goliaths from New Jersey, because the wild blueberries of Maine have arrived (Apologies NJ, I still love your and everyone’s blueberries). Eschewing the grocery store to pluck them for free off of the mountain tops and meadows of coastal Maine feels sinfully indulgent. Thoreau said of blueberries, “I think of them as fruits fit to grow on Olympus, the ambrosia of the gods.” Perhaps that makes me Prometheus, stealing from the gods who so abundantly seeded these hills with blue verdure.


So you collected your blueberries? Great! Eat them by the handful, since they are best enjoyed fresh. However, you can use those blubes to great effect in pancakes. I present:

Sourdough Wild Maine Blueberry Pancakes

Ingredients

2 generous heaps of wild Maine blueberries

1 cup of bubbly sourdough starter

2 cups of warm water

2 1/2 cups flour

2 T turbinado sugar

1 egg

2 T vegetable oil

1/2 t salt

1 t baking soda

Mix the starter, water, flour, and sugar in a large bowl. Cover and allow to rise for as long as you can wait, 20 minutes is fine or you can mix the batter the night ahead. To make the pancakes add the egg, oil, and salt to the batter and stir. Add the baking soda and mix it all together well. Pour in your heaps of beautiful blueberries and stir to combine them. Heat a skillet and add some oil, ladling pancakes into the pan. Flip ’em when they start to get bubbly on top and cook 1-2 minutes on the other side. Serve with butter and Maine maple syrup, and maybe even more fresh berries.

BluebPancakes

This recipe I adapted from the book Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz. If you do not or cannot use sourdough starter, you can always use a boxed pancake mix, gluten free mix, or others, and add your berries to get delicious results.

OK, bye for now. I am off to pick more blueberries. Happy blueberry season!

Sam Adels

About Sam Adels

Sam and his wife Claire are the resident stewards of the Good Life Center, the homestead of Helen and Scott Nearing in Harborside, Maine. They are learning from the example that Helen and Scott set with their lives: living simply, gardening, and welcoming visitors to their homestead. They are transplants, and like a seedling, they are together putting down roots in order to grow.