It’s the Wild Maine Blueberry Harvest!
Yesterday I went to pick up our farm subscription (organic, locally grown vegetables) so took the back way around to our drive, and what should appear to my wondering eyes but:
I’d never before seen the commercial blueberry harvesters. The old way is to use a “blueberry rake.” Think of a dust pan, but above the flat base is a set of tines (line a fork) that “rake” the berries and pull the berries but not (in theory at least) the leaves into the pan. Pan gets dumped into big plastic “flat.” Well, now I know how the big guys do it…. the field above is about 1/4 mile from the bottom end of our driveway (that’s maybe 500 metres?). There were several of the harvesters in the field…. here’s a closeup. Looking carefully, I could see that there is a sweep of some sort on the far side, and the driver in the center was leaning over looking out the far side and down.
Regular store-bought blueberries are big… like the tip of a finger big. Wild Maine blueberries have SO MUCH more flavor…they are tiny, the size of what is sold as “Petite Green Peas” in the frozen section of the grocery. I found a great recipe for muffins in Cook’s Illustrated a while ago, and Eli and I love them! We add frozen raspberries, too!
Cool beans…or maybe I should say Cool Berries!
July 26th, 2012 at 9:27 pm
Only one time in my life in Minnesota, did I ever find a blueberry patch! I lived near Duluth, MN at the time. Those were truly the berry best blueberries I have ever had!!!
July 28th, 2012 at 12:59 am
Maine blueberries (OK, New hampshire and Nova Scotia too) are the ONLY REAL blueberries! I HATE those big fat commercial berries. Ah, blueberries and lobsters…how I miss them so…