Do you like saskatoons?

I was recently invited to go picking service berries with some friends.  Not wanting to show my ignorance and always pleased to learn some wild craft I readily agreed.  It was a lovely day and I was able to get plenty of information regarding the storing and preserving of the little berry from the other women.  It turns out that the service berry is also referred to as the saskatoon.  I tasted a few and was quite put off.  While the berry was sweet and tender enough, the skin was rather tough and the seeds were large and hard.  I just couldn’t see popping a hand full in my mouth and greedily munching away like I would do blue or black berries. 

Well I picked my fair share.  Though being a novice picker, it wasn’t that much.  When I brought them home my family was excited to try them.  They look so good.  Too bad they don’t taste as good as they look.  I packed them away into the freezer and scoured the Internet for information and ideas on what to do with this troubling berry.  These saskatoons are so prolific out here.  It would be great to have another wild food source.  If only it was pleasant to eat.

I found an intriguing recipe for a saskatoon chutney with lamb loin.  Wow! This seemed right up our alley.  With a field full of lamb and this evocative berry right at our finger tips.  If only it is good.  I promptly went to the store to get the ingredients and forgot my list.  I was unsucessful  in remembering the entire list, so I’ll have to try again another day.  I’ll let you all know how it turns out.

Not easy picking, but worth the time.

In the mean time I have a freezer full of berries that no one wants to eat.  Then my other girl friend called.  Would I like to go huckleberry picking?  Of course!  My husband rolled his eyes and asked where they were going to fit in our micro freezer – I guess we need a bigger one. 

less eating, more picking

After 4 or so hours of picking I was sure I had at least a gallon or more.  Boy was I wrong.  I had barely 8 cups!  Oh well, into the freezer they go.  Well, we have been enjoying the huckleberries!  They are great!  Too bad the freezer is being taken up with the miserable saskatoons.  There isn’t room for any more huckleberries and to make matters worse on of the bags fell out of the freezer and spilled all over our floor.  Oh, why did it have to be the huckleberries?!?

Ok, time for action.  I have to figure out what to do with all those saskatoons!  It is simply not in my nature to just throw them away.  I found a few interesting recipes, but they all called for ingredients that I didn’t have on hand.  A 40 mile round trip to the store just for pectin is not likely with these gas prices.

Then I noted a muffin recipe.  From my previous research I learned that you want to use citrus and salt with the saskatoons to bring out the berry flavor and the almond flavor of the seeds.  Yes, those awful seeds actually do taste like almonds – if only they didn’t get stuck in your teeth!  I didn’t have the orange juice the recipe called for, so I substituted with lemon juice.  After baking, the seeds were much softer and the muffins were divine!!!  Glory be!  We have a use for the berries.  Now I am excited about trying the other recipes I found and I am also thinking about picking a few more as well as planting a few bushes here on the farm.