Berry Picking: A wealth of opportunity

My favorite part of the year is always berry picking season! It's in my blood, literally. My father is half Finnish, making me a quarter. Finns are avid berry pickers as their climate is very similar to Alaska. Even those who immigrated to the US, kept up this tradition. My great grandmother owned a blueberry farm in southern New Hampshire. My grandfather made sure to have a bounty of blueberry bushes on his own property. My dad grew up picking berries at my Great Grandma Liimatainen's farm and now plants a new blueberry bush every year around his house.

Alaska is a land where people take the utmost pride in their ability to subsist off the land. So be careful when you ask someone where their favorite blueberry spot is... they may lead you astray. Like favorite hunting grounds and fishing holes, we guard our berry picking spots with great secrecy, only to be shared with family or close friends.

My family and I have picked berries across this great state. Kodiak is our favorite for salmon berries, Fairbanks: highbush cranberries & lingonberries, Hatcher's Pass for the view, and now Juneau has proven, with all its rain, to provide the biggest, juiciest blueberries and huckleberries.


Lessons from the Land:

Berry picking not only provides food in our freezers, but it is also the grounds for a wealth of lessons we can impart to our children. Some concepts that can be taught through berry picking and the requisite baking after:

• Estimating - estimate how many berries are in your container then count them.
• Volume - pour berries from a smaller container into a larger one
• Ecology - food chain, paying attention to where the berries are found on the mountain side - are they near streams? high in the rocky areas? low in the boggy areas? Is this habitat to other creatures?
• Topography & Geography  - bring a compass or a gps device to record your coordinates, pay attention to the terrain and elevation gain as you hike.
• Measurement & Fractions- baking
• Process Skills- From planning the berry picking adventure through canning, baking or freezing, kids see the entire process of gathering materials, making a plan and seeing it through.
• Democracy - let the students or members of your family vote on the fate of the berries... pies, smoothies, muffins etc...
• History - in my family's case blueberries are an important part of our history, my great-grandmother owned a blueberry farm in New Hampshire, as did many other 1st generation Finnish Americans. Berry's are also a part of the subsistence culture of Alaska from it's Native peoples to the gold miners fighting off scurvy in the long winter months.
• Literary connections - as I mention in an earlier post Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey is a favorite in our house. Blueberry Shoe, by Ann Dixon, a local author is another.
• Nutrition - There are many benefits to eating berries - antioxidants and fiber are just the beginning.

Some great books to tie in with your foraging adventures:

Activities - Make a Berry Bucket:

 Boy could Sal have used a bucket with bells like this one!

• a yogurt container with lid
• hole puncher
• yarn
• pipecleaners
• bells
• stickers to decorate

Favorite berry recipe:

Blueberry Crumb Bars

Adapted from http://smittenkitchen.com

Yield: I cut these into 36 smallish rectangles

1 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup cold coconut oil (may use butter instead)

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon salt

Zest and juice of one lemon

4 cups fresh blueberries, salmonberries, huckleberries, rhubarb, raspberries, cranberries or any mixture of fruit

1/2 cup white sugar

4 teaspoons flour

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9×13 inch pan.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder. Mix in salt and lemon zest. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the coconut oil (or butter) and egg. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.
3. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. (This took an extra 10 to 15 minutes in my oven.) Cool completely before cutting into squares.