Blueberries, raspberries, and others.
How are they, or how are they looking?

Our Saskatoons are just coming along, peak ripeness in a few days. Late and sparse this year. Lots of rust ( fungus) on the leaves.

Picked a 5 quart ice cream bucket of the native indigenous wild blackberries this afternoon, in a clearcut. They are smaller in size but way better tasting than the much larger Himalaya variety that has taken over much of the northwest coast.

Bumper crop this year with the largest ones I've ever seen. They make stupendous pies, fabulous jam, and my wife loves them on breakfast cereal. Plan to go back and pick some more.

corrected size of bucket!

Okanagan;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope this finds you all doing well - though if you've got a good supply of blackberries that surely can't be a bad start....

We've had a good year for Saskatoons this year, though our variety here is more "seedy" than the ones we had in the prairies or even in the Kootenays we think.

It's been quite warm here lately and we've not headed up to see how the wild strawberries or raspberries are doing, but it's likely a wee bit early for them.

Some people know where there are 2-3 huckleberries locally, but I'm not one of them somehow, so I can't say about them.

Anyway sir, all the best to you and your fine family.

Dwayne

Dwayne,

All the best back to you!

Re Saskatoon berries, when we lived in the N. Okanagan I never could figure out why people from the prairies liked the seedy semi dry berries so much. But they are much better east of the big mountains.

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!

Way up by Enderby I know where we used to find the first ripe huckleberries, usually by this time of year. But it's a long ways up to the Monashee River valley for you, especially when they will be more abundant at higher elevations near your house in a few weeks.

A blackberry pie is in the oven as I type...

Will add a coda: this pie is quiver-all-over delicious. My wife says it is the best ever (I shorted the sugar a bit because we like an edge of tart zing). She likes it straight. I got some high end French vanilla to go on mine. This would be excellent with pure sweet cream.

Lake of the woods fishing trip a few years back..went up on the hill behind our cabin and had a great breakfast..The wild ones have way more flavor than store bought.

I especially like those strip looking berries on the side. Bet you they taste a lot like bacon, which without a doubt is my favourite flavour of berry.

Yes Sir that first two inches from left to right was "heavenly" no pun intended!

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.

Our mainstay where I'm at is good old saskatoons. Saskatoon pie! Oh my!

My wife is from near the 56th parallel, so blueberries are her favorite.

Someone above talked about those bitter little red berries. We had some planted trees on an acreage years back that were called buffalo berries. Ooo doggies! They were SUPER bitter! The Prairie Chickens used to come in the winter time and sit in those trees and peck away at the berries.

I guess I've I've done it to myself again.
Now I have a powerful hankerin' for some of the Saskatoon's.

Do they need much sugar in a pie mix?

Post the recipe if you will?

I eat pies, not make them! I think my wife does use some sugar, but not a lot. Saskatoons aren't bitter.

I've made blueberry cobbler a few times.
No crust to roll out.

Warm cobbler, and cold ice cream is hard to beat.

True dat!

My favorite cobbler is apricot with peach a close second.

Alpine huckleberries are my all time favorite berry and the inland ones are better than the ones on the coast.

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.