When I was growing up on the farm in north Alabama, not too many miles from where I live at Mulberry Woods now, two little old ladies named Cleo and Clezelle would often come by to visit and share their wisdom about country living. "Little old lady" should here be taken in the Southern context: there was probably four hundred pounds of horseflesh, or rather human flesh, between the pair.
Cleo and Clezelle were experts on all things rural, and they could create an irresistible dialog while sitting in the swing under our white oak tree. They were particularly adept at ornithology, as well as they should have been, having reduced all of bird kind to two varieties, blue jays and peckerwoods. When a bird flew by, there was a short argument, but then quick agreement--that particular fowl was a peckerwood. I do, however, recall that they once both agreed that a bird sitting on our fence was in fact a redbird. The exception, perhaps, that proved the rule.
What, you may well ask, has this to do with wild blueberries? The fact is that the wild blueberries are blooming right now, and have been for more than a week, after the coldest winter in memory. In the late winter race to bloom first, Southern woody plant division, the wild blueberries always win. Alabama Snowwreath, Neviusia alabamensis, and Serviceberry, Amelanchier arborea, are always a close second. Buds out, good. No bloom, sorry, no cigar. Even the low to the ground Trailing Arbutus, Epigea repens, and Yellowroot, Xanthoriza simplicissima, can't beat the blueberry to the pollinators.
Still, what about blue jays and peckerwoods? Well, thanks to some DNA research by an enterprising botanist, almost all edible wild blueberries have now been lumped into one single species, the Highbush Blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum. In all, seven different species of blueberries that I had spent years trying to learn to separate are now considered to be just one. I can almost hear Clezelle saying, "No, the only kind of bird that has blue on it is a blue jay." No more "low huckleberry" or even "rabbiteye," just a bunch of varieties of what is essentially the same thing.
Still, there can be great diversity within equality, and we tend to classify our wild blueberry bushes into two types, with a nod, of course, to the two little old ladies. We have tall ones and we have short ones, similar to the highbush and lowbush distinction that botanists maintained for all of those years. The tall plants bloom first and ripen first, but have tiny fruit. The small plants are almost identical in appearance to "rabbiteye" cultivars such as Tifblue and Climax, but have much smaller fruit. And their flavor is only about ten thousand times more potent.
I did mention flavor. Culinary dynamite comes in small packages, and these fruit are like plutonium in intensity. Taste them while picking, but try to not eat them all so you can try the following recipe. I have at least one bush which has the most bitter, foul tasting berries I have ever eaten, something like a combination of dirty sock and rancid vinegar. Don't eat those, or like they say in bad restaurants, don't eat the burned ones.
The earliest berries will be ripe by May, and sometimes even late April, which coincides with the tick, mosquito and chigger hatches. But what are a few pox marks compared to a bowl of wild blueberries?
Recipe for Wild Blueberry Sauce
Ingredients:
Butter (Amish butter if you can get it)
Wild Blueberries
Brandy
Organic Sugar
Lemon Juice (Meyer lemon is best)
Quantities are iffy on this one, as everything depends on how ripe and/or sweet/tart your berries are.
Start by adding a tablespoon of butter to a hot saucepan.
Add one quarter to one half cup of wild blueberries. More would be both excessive and exhausting.
Cook until you have a pan full of purple juice. Add the brandy to taste and cook out the alcohol. If you have too many bug bites, drink the brandy instead and add water. Explain that all the brandy flavor cooked out of the dish.
Add sugar to taste, usually a couple of tablespoons. Don't add too much--I hate things that are too sweet.
If it's good at this point, wait until you add the lemon juice. This is the real secret weapon. Taste one more time, pour over your chosen victim, such as a hot crepe, and then dig in.
Wild blueberries, early and tart, small and delicious. A harbinger of spring after a hard winter. And there is practically only one kind.
Cleo and Clezell would be proud.
