Dwayne,
One of summer's pleasures was getting someone from outside the area to taste a sopalalie (swhooshum) berry! Those little red dudes pack a punch of flavor! Too bad it is so bad to my taste. Have you ever tried Indian ice cream made from sopalalie juice? The juice has a foaming agent in it and a table spoon of it beaten with a fork or electric beater will foam up like pink meringue and fill a big mixing bowl. Add lots of sugar as you beat it-- and to me it still tastes awful!
My grandmother [salish] made hooshum ice cream, it was one of the most awful things I've ever tasted. As kids we would gorge on wild berries, one of my favorites is the huckleberry, followed by Saskatoon, wild strawberries and raspberries are always a treat. Down on the coast of BC they have blackberries...they are really good, but we don't have them where we live.
Interesting on several levels. Okanagans pronounce it
swooshum and farther north and west they call it
whooshum and then by the time you get to Mt. Currie it is
hooshum.
And then there are words like garage, film, roof etc. as pronounced by Americans and Canucks!
Dialects...
Added note: anyone reading this who hasn't tasted Indan ice cream has no idea how potent a flavour we are talking about! Thanks for the comment re your grandmother.
