It
may seem like the wrong time of year to extol the virtues of the huckleberry
but I can get into my freezer and stick a handful in my morning oatmeal, so why
not sing their praises?
In
late summer I can often be found on a hillside in the Hoodoo Mountains picking
these treasured little berries. While I
love the flavor I also love the act of picking them. Being out in the woods, usually with a friend
or two, hidden in the bushes seemingly alone and calling out only occasionally to
my friends and just forgetting everything in the world except these little
purple jewels is a luxury I can’t describe or even share with many others. Most other people don’t get it, that seeming
alone time to just think. And here in
May when things can feel hectic and overwhelming I can just pull out a handful
of that alone time and plop it in my oatmeal.
I can smell the heat and the forest.
I can hear the insects buzzing but I don’t think about work. I can feel my breakfast melting me into a
world apart, a huckleberry heaven that is all my own.
Huckleberries
are tart with a strong scent. You can
often smell them on the hillsides when they are ripe, their scent sweet and
alluring. They make great pies, syrup
and other sweets but they can also add a nice tang to savory foods. They are expensive to buy so any huckleberry food
products from Idaho and Montana (where they are common) can also become
costly. But after you’ve picked them a
few times—they’re only wild, never cultivated—and you spend an hour only to get
half a gallon you soon understand that $40 a gallon isn’t such a bad deal. Personally I would rather spend my summer
afternoons on a mountainside whiling the time away with a couple friends in a
huckleberry patch and bring all that joy to mind in a nice breakfast in May or
an October piece of pie. I love huckleberries.
