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(Barrett & MacKay/All
Canada Photos/Corbis)
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My favorite chronicler of natural and cultural histories in early
America is Englishman John Josselyn. He was a curious and good-humored
observer of the 17th-century inhabitants of northern New England,
both indigenous and colonists, and their ways. Josselyn was particularly
interested in local, medicinal uses of plants. Of what he referred
to as bill berries, Europes closest relative to
the blueberries, he reported that the fruit is used To cool
the heat of Feavers, and quench Thirst. They are very good to allay
the burning heat of Feavers, and hot Agues [a fever that shakes
the body], either in Syrup or Conserve.
This native fruit is the low-bush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium)
that grows wild in the northeastern part of North America. Their
stands spread on well-drained, highly acidic soil, only reaching
about a foot in height. Blueberry barrens, rolling areas of sandy
soil (usually treeless) along the foggy coastline, were first created
naturally, then maintained by Native Americans. The berries produced
from this rugged terrain are quite small and sweet and are far superior
to the cultivated blueberry plants with fat, often mushy, fruit
that populate markets today.
Josselyn was also attentive to local food and its preparation.
He noted that the sky-coloured blueberries make for
A most excellent Summer Dish. And further:
They usually eat of them put into a Bason, with Milk,
and sweetned a little more with Sugar and Spice, or for cold
Stomachs, in Sack. The Indians dry them in the Sun, and sell
them to the English by the Bushell, who make use of them instead
of Currene [currants], putting of them into Puddens, both boyled
and bakes, and into Water Gruel.
A simple dish favored by Native Americans was called sautauthig,
dried blueberries and dried, cracked corn mixed with water. Of the
many foods proposed to have been served at the early thanksgiving
feasts in New England, this pudding is one of the likely ones, according
to historians. As related by Josselyn, the colonists added milk,
butter and sugar, when available, to the mush.
Josselyns narratives are of his long stays and a catalog
of what he saw and learned in the New World in 1638 and, returning,
in 1663. Details of what and how Native Americans and the early
Europeans ate in North America are scarce and that makes New-Englands
Rarities Discovered (1672) and Account
of Two Voyages to New-England (1674) so valuable. Both volumes
are in the Smithsonian Libraries Special Collections. The
Biodiversity Heritage Library has digitized the original texts (links
here and here) as well as later reprints. Josselyn throughout his
two compendiums confirms that Native Americans were an important
supplier of food to the colonists. In addition, the indigenous knowledge
of climate, soil and growing practices was, of course, critical
to the Europeans survival.
The English author resided mostly in Maine during his two extended
stays. Blueberries still grow wild there, and further into Canada.
Samuel de Champlain, in 1615 during one of his many explorations,
gives the earliest known account of Native Americans (Algonquins)
eating blueberries. The berries were wonderfully abundant, and the
indigenous population dried them for winter use.
The Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune recorded in Relation
de ce qui sest passé en la Nouvelle France sur le Grand
Fleuve de S. Laurens (Relation of what occurred in New France
on the Great River St. Lawrence, in the year one thousand six
hundred thirty-four) what the savages consume. They
eat, besides some small ground fruits, such as raspberries, blueberries,
strawberries, nuts which have very little meat, hazelnuts, wild
apples sweeter than those of France, but much smaller. In
another chapter, focusing on beliefs and customs, Le Jeune noted
that Some of them imagine a Paradise abounding in blueberries.
Another account of a later exploration, Samuel Hearnes A
Journey from Prince of Waless Fort in Hudsons Bay to
the Norther Ocean (1795; BHL link)
observed that blueberries are seldom ripe till September,
at which time the leaves turn to a beautiful red; and the fruit,
though small, have as fine a bloom as any plum, and are much esteemed
for the pleasantness of their flavour.
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Wild blueberry fields
in the near Parrsboro, Nova Scotia (photograph by Dennis Jarvis
via Wikimedia Commons)
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Dried blueberries were often an ingredient of pemmican,
the original power food bar. Incorporated with pulverized dried
fish or meat and melted tallow, and formed into cakes baked by the
sun, this provision provided energy, lasted for months, and was
easily portable on long journeys. Today, pemmican (a Cree word for
rendered fat) is seeing a resurgence with the popularity of paleo
diets and survival provisioning. Native Americans also gathered
blueberries (or cranberries and huckleberries) and boiled for a
few hours before simply being shaped into cakes and dried in the
sun. In addition, the roots of the blueberry plant were boiled for
tea by Native Americans.
Food in the New World was, of course, essential for survival but
also needed for commercial reasons, as products to sell locally
as well as for trade to a ready audience in Europe and beyond. But
commercial harvesting of blueberries was a late comer to the market
and did not really begin until the 1840s. Then, as markets in the
South dried up for exported seafood during the Civil War, canneries
switched to wild blueberries, harvested from the barrens (link).
And it wasnt until the early 20th century that blueberries
became a truly viable crop and commodity. That was when a government
scientist, Frederick Coville of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
working with Elizabeth C. White of New Jersey of Whitesbog, New
Jersey, began developing varieties of blueberries that could be
grown on farms and in home gardens.
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Whitesbog Blueberries
(1925; U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agriculture
Library) one of many nursery and seed catalogs digitized by
the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The commercial high-bush
blueberry was the result of the partnership of Frederick Coville
and Elizabeth White, beginning in 1911.
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Much earlier, indigenous peoples used controlled burns to increase
yields of blueberries, a technique still employed today. Every few
years fields may be burned to eliminate old shrubs and fertilize
the soil. Native American tribes, including the Micmac and Passamaquoddy
tribes, working with government and private agencies, still maintain
blueberry barrens, preserving this significant element of the rocky,
coastal landscape.
Now, blueberries are touted with a wide-range of health benefits,
from protection against heart disease and cancer, to maintaining
bone strength, blood pressure and good skin, to controlling diabetes.
They have become a trendy fruit in a variety of products. Full of
antioxidants, they contain flavonoids believed to improve memory
and slow age-related decline in mental function. Wild blueberries
are said to contain twice the antioxidants of regular, commercial
ones, with more phytochemicals such as anthocyanin.
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Vaccinium angustifolium
Aiton, low-bush blueberry in Maine. Photograph courtesy of
the Botany Department, National Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian
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However, the native wild blueberry business with recent high yields
are in trouble, as the berries are commercially harvested mainly
in Maine and are not as well-known. Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry
Co. of Maine, responsible for tribal blueberry operations, has recently
cut back in production from their fields and barrens (story
here). The wild variety is nearly impossible to transport fresh
and, for export, are sold canned or frozen.
This Thanksgiving, in recognition of Native American Heritage Month,
consider adding a wild
blueberry pie, scones and muffins with dried berries or the
original sautauthig
pudding to your repast, honoring blueberries rich culinary
and medicinal history in the Americas. And this native fruit, so
intense in flavor, does make a superior pie.
For more information:
The University of Maine. Cooperative Extension. Maine Wild Blueberries
(link)
Blueberries to Potatoes: Farming in Maine, Maine Memory
Network (link)
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Photo by Francois Bianco
via Wikimedia Commons (August 2015)
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