the berry finale

picking, sipping, jammin' & baking this summer's berries (galore)

Greetings from the GRAND FINALE of berry season! Snow is in the weekly forecast! I’ve donned mittens! The lowbush crans* are officially a shade of deep merlot! And dropping on their own! Spontaneously bursting open!

*And from here on out, by “lowbush cranberries” I will switch to the clearly more endearing “lingonberry”.

Moving on! My sorting stockpile of all things berries (see ya, stems!) is overflowing!  There are now seven packs of wee mason jars to my left!! Egads to it all ! ! !

but first, it’s double birthday month, starting with my ode to lingonberries, sparkling rosé + rosehips

Exclamations aside, I’m left with the picking, the snacking, the storage, the jam-making and all those days of maroon fingertips. 

Okay, I really just wanted to share scenes and my projects from our berry-est Alaskan summer yet. 

It all started with a little berry book, and these two realizations:

1) blueberries and cranberries are EVERYWHERE - they are literally the forest floor

and

2) hiking is way more fun when you’re studying, collecting and snacking on berries & other wild edible delights (funghi! spruce tips! fireweed blossoms! wild sage! labrador tea!)

I could (and will) go on & on about all the berries I’ve seen & sampled & all the others I’ve yet to elsewhere in this enormous state.

For cohesiveness’ sake, I’ll (somewhat) attempt to share one photo per berry – or berry-like fruit, as the late, great Verna E. Pratt, author of Alaska’s Wild Berries and Berry-Like Fruit, would attest – in order of seasonal appearance + some homemade creations.

Reminisce into the Alaskan berry summer…

1) behold the glory of haskap berries, 2) july jam 3) that’s me picking haskap berries [top, R, L]

HONEYBERRIES aka HASKAPS [cultivated at Big M Farm] We dove into berry season with a day of U-Pick honeyberries, a juicy and dare-I-say sultry huckleberry variant at Big M Farm in Nenana. These oval dark blue berries are native to Eastern Asia and Russia and are quite spring-frost resilient, hence the success in the interior. Needless to say, our freezer is now one quarter-haskaps and the initial harvest has since gone into cinnamon rolls, mojitos, pancakes and a batch of cocoa & cabernet-supplemented jam.

lingonberries, blueberries, crowberries & one mittened hand on september 10th

BLUEBERRIES Picture this - in current time, the blueberry bushes are breathtaking swaths of autumnal red. Rewind a month, and we’re picking bog bluebs, alpine bluebs, dwarf bluebs, and I swear, the occasional bilberry variant. Oh, Alaska. What DON’T we do with blueberries?!?!? Helloooooooooo winter pancakes.

mixed cup of red bear berries, blueberries & crowberries on my “daily stroll”, august 10th

RED BEARBERRIES Okay, this one is literally more for the birds and its namesake, but I can never resist. They’re slightly bitter and fairly translucent, yet, intriguingly juicy, courtesy of the bogs they grow from. Plus, I have a soft spot because last summer they were SO intensely abundant when little else was.

young trailing raspberries in denali state park

TRAILING RASPBERRIES (not to be confused with the Traveling RaspWilburries) These are such cool, tiny bits of piquantly tart rasp - even if I’ve yet to come across them seriously ripe! I think they’d be so fun to pickle.

watermelon berries on a foggy morning

WATERMELON BERRIES Cue the cheers! These little pink and red bursts of refreshingly cucumber vibes beckon the berry season! I’ve made jelly with these, and used as both a smashed ingredient and garnish for summer cocktails. I have a jar of watermelon berry liqueur patiently awaiting its straining day in a couple of weeks. And they just scream summer mojito.

black currants getting darker

RED and BLACK CURRANTS Ding ding ding - two more of my favorite berries of the summer! I just adore the bright tang of the red ones - we even had some in our new yard! - and black currants have such a musky funk - and that’s a good thing. Both of these gooseberry-family berries are great in scones and muffins (what isn’t). I opened up my 2020 creme de cassis - aka black currant liqueur - just this week for a “champagne” cocktail !

1) singular cloudberry 2) berry picking in the bogs in healy 3) more summer jam 4) sorting through cloudberries/bluebs/crows [clockwise top R to L]

CLOUDBERRIES Gasp! What a year for these iconic, northern, tangy custard-y berries in the rosaceae (and therefore, rose/raspberry) family. Dude, the first ripe cloudberry of the season makes me SWOON. I’ve processed two batches of jam and two jars of a homemade take on the Finnish ‘lapponia lakka’, with bonus ginger. Plus, we got to go berry picking with our dear friend Amey and actually found (late) cloudberries for her to excitedly experience! It was surreal. And fun fact: these plants take seven years to produce fruit , which of course, is well worth the wait.

1) summer berry spritz 2) another round of berry sorting 3) blueberry mojito mocktail w/ garden mint 4) crowberries 5) sourdough ‘shortcake’ biscuits to accompany berries & silken tofu creme [clockwise top L to R]

WILD RASPBERRIES So precious & fleeting - these must be snacked upon or mashed into jam immediately! It’s a pressing matter: eat those tart wild raspberries!

crowberries in their element

CROWBERRIES aka MOSSBERRIES Some may only think of these small dark berries as a “filler” fruit alongside their neighbor blueberries, and I certainly am prone to combining the two in recipes & storage, but I will add that both Jules and I adore when these get plump and juicy after a few good summer rains. They taste like the forest smells - aka moss - in such a pleasing way.

1) highbush cranberries 2) highbush cran whiskey sour w/ aquafaba foam 3) more sorting 4) etc ! feat. a small bowl of alpine bearberries [clockwise top L to R]

HIGHBUSH CRANBERRIES Once again, bring on a funky, seriously tart berry! These make excellent juice and jellies (strain the tiny seeds out). If you’re one for whiskey sours, might I suggest the following, adapted from The Essential Cocktail by mixologist Dale Degroff. Granted, I made it with home-strained highbush cranberry juice, but storebought will suffice. ; )

whiskey sour recipecard

ALPINE BEARBERRIES aka PTARMIGAN BERRIES What dark & mysterious orbs. I kid you not, until recently, I didn’t believe these were real, and yet, of course they are! It was Jules who brought home a handful from a hiking trip south of our area. They were juicy & mellow & plump - check! I may (definitely) be hoarding a few in the freezer for winter cocktail garnishes. [pssst, there’s a photo in a berry sorting colleage below]

rosehips for tea, syrups and jelly-making

ROSEHIPS I’m ready for rosehips when they’re ready for me. This means the petals drop, the fruit appears, a frost arrives, the bud softens, and I go picking. These are evidently super high in Vitamin C - even strangers have stopped to tell me this and insist that I make tea with them! So far, yes, I’ve made tea, as well as rosehip liqueur, a number of syrups (for icings, and the like), the far above rosehip-infused cake, and juice for future jelly-making endeavours.

collecting lingonberries in early september

LINGONBERRIES aka LOWBUSH CRANBERRIES The berries we wait all year for! They’re slowly more & more beautiful (yet, mealy to nibble on) for what feels like months, nearly everywhere you walk - and then, after a frost or two – they’re ready! And everyone you know is filling their freezer!! I’m about to go out for more… Use these in lieu of the larger (lower) North American cranberries in sweet & savory recipes. Yes, there will be pancakes, scones, chutney, jam, and much, much more to come.

fresh lingonberry spice scones w/ cinnamon-sour orange glaze

⭐ BONUS SASKATOONS aka JUNEBERRIES aka SERVICEBERRIES [cultivated, although they do reportedly grow wild elsewhere in Alaska] I swear, when they’re really ripe, these purple berries give off the dreamy taste of persimmon - it’s that something-something where you can hardly believe you’re getting *that* special, somewhat tropical flavor on *this* continent. They’re so, so good in pies and galettes, and I have one jar remaining of a saskatoon/mixed berry/brandy jam from a few years ago. Mhmm. [btw, I have photos on this prior substack missive, for anyone curious]

Honorable Mentions: picking Red, Black and Golden raspberries at Big M Farm, as well as the all-around-us Mountain Juniper, which is ripe when it’s blue. What a captivating aroma!

mountain juniper, mid-september ‘22

So, who’s up for pancakes?!

What would you do with a freezer full of summer berries?!?

References + Revalant Links:

• Ahtna Alaska Native Corporation’s Berry guide

• Alaska Berry Blog Resources

• Alaska’s Wild Berries and Berry-Like Fruit by Verna E. Pratt (this full short book is available at the link on archive.org)

• The Boreal Herbal: Wild Food and Medicine Plants of the North by Beverley Gray

• Eating seasonally and locally has many benefits. Is fighting the climate crisis one of them? CNN/MSN September 14, 2022

• The Essential Cocktail: The Art of Mixing Perfect Drinks by Dale DeGroff

• Farm Worker Rights, Food Empowerment Project

Land Acknowledgement: This post & related foraging acknowledges the land and knowledge of the Dena'ina/Athabaskan people, historically and perpetually.