Huckleberry Jam

I understand why people don’t grow huckleberries by the field and there aren’t U-Pick huckleberry farms all over Minnesota. It’s because you can’t tell they’re ripe by tasting them. I waited and waited and waited for mine. The birds tasted them six weeks ago when they first had deep purple berries and decided they were inedible. A few in my fridge got mistaken for blueberries two weeks ago and my husband decided they were inedible.

I waited, reading that when ripe they have a slightly tart taste. Hmmm. Finally, I could wait no longer. They were softish, as in not hard as rocks, and they were black the way our first family car, my father’s 1965 Mustang, was not actually green but black. I guess you could say they were slightly tart, but the larger taste was just not good.

Not wanting to waste 6 cups of sugar and the package of pectin, I decided to throw two pints of blueberries in to help them out. I had in the end 9 cups of fruit, and because the huckleberries didn’t exactly crush between my fingers, I put the 7 cups of them through the food mill. This gave me about half juice and half foam… It did take out most of the skins without diminishing the volume by much.

In the pan with the pectin and lemon juice, the foam settled down after awhile. I didn’t skimp on sugar the way I usually do, or on the pectin, now that there were so few solids. I’m a nervous jam-maker.

The color of the cooking mixture, though, was gorgeous! And in the jars it was even better. The smell was promising but not like other jams, i.e., not recognizable.

In the end, I like it!

It’s kind of a jewel of a jam, not super sweet and flavorful. It says Earl Grey tea and cucumber sandwiches to me. It will be great on winter popovers and right now is delicious on graham crackers. I’m thinking of making this cream cheese ice cream recipe and substituting swirls of the jam for strawberries. Next year, I’ll grow more bushes, maybe in the ornamental flower/veggie garden up front. It is a major plus that they’re annuals and also that the birds reject the berries! It is a pain not knowing quite when they’re ready (patience, as you know, is not my virtue).

A bonus was the way the dishwater afterward turned the exact color of a blue snow cone. I didn’t realize that color was huckleberry!