Читать книгу The Alaska Wild Berry Cookbook - Alaska Northwest Books - Страница 10

About Berries

In this volume, we have concentrated our recipes among the more abundant or more popular species of wild berries. Many berries native to other regions are similar to ours and can be used in place of the Northern fruit suggested for recipes here. Cultivated species may also be substituted for wild berries, although one must remember that they are often less tart than their wild relatives and adjustments in the sugar added may be necessary.

The different forms of raspberries may be substituted one for the other and blueberries likewise. The red currant is a distinctive fruit, and it is probably best not to use other varieties of currants when a recipe calls for red ones. Lowbush and highbush cranberries are entirely different and require different recipes. For more information on the different types of berries, consult the glossary on page 186.

The farther north you can collect rose hips (fruit of the rose), the more vitamin C content they will have. Rose hips are extremely useful in the North where vitamin C is so lacking and oranges so expensive! They can be used alone or with other fruit. Rose hips should definitely be harvested whenever available. There is difference of opinion about when to harvest. Some people say they should be picked just before the first frost and others prefer to pluck them after the frost.

Many of the recipes given here are in the dessert category, but you may be surprised by how many other ways there are to use wild berries. Lowbush cranberries are particularly good in certain meat dishes and are useful as a marinade for meat. Wild berries are fine for jam and jelly making, of course, not to mention for drying and freezing.

Food preparation often involves a certain amount of experimentation, so do try new combinations and methods and be an experimenter yourself. You may have some delightful eating if you are brave enough to venture making changes in recipes. However you prepare them, wild berries are fun to work with from the time of harvest through the eating. We think you will agree.