Garden Huckleberries

When I planted my garden last spring, I included huckleberries. Or at least that's what I thought. In re-reading the seed packet, it's not a true huckleberry (related to blueberry) but actually a "Garden Huckleberry" which is more closely related to a tomato (the fruits look like dark blueberries, though).

I've read that they're best harvested after a light frost, so they're still out there, but I wanted to know what kinds of experiences people here have had with them, and any recipe suggestions.

HI,

If you can, get the latin name of the berry. It may be on the package, if you still have it. Common names can often be misleading. You may be able to get more precise information on the ripening once we have the correct name.

Tonight may be our hard frost, so you can test them today and tomorrow to see if there is any difference. I am betting there won't be a substantial difference between today and tomorrow, but please try and advise!

Recently, I read Fading Feasts by Ray Sokolov. In one of his short articles, he was discussing the native persimmon, which was also reported to ripen fully after a frost. He found that information to be a lot of bunk. It may have a long ripening period, which may or may not coincide with a frost. In his experiment, he picked some native persimmons and put them in a closed paper bag. After a few days, long before a frost, they were ripe.

The reason we may have this 'ripe after frost' information is due to minimal availability of these fruits. They are so marginally available, they are not studied to learn the ripening period. So if someone provides anecdotal information, then it gets recorded as fact.

The latin name is Solanum Melanocerasum.

BTW, with regard to Persimmons, Harold McGee's excellent book "The Curious Cook" has an entire chapter (16 pages) on ripening them, including a surprisingly readable discussion of what happends during ripening at the cellular and molecular level, and practical advice on how to achieve ripening in the home kitchen.

Unfortunately, none of that applies to Solanum Melanocerasum.

Hi,

Latin name does the trick, via University of Minnesota Extension:

Each plant will bear hundreds of ?-inch berries, ripening from green to deep black. ... The fruits are not edible until fully ripe and cooked. They are toxic if eaten unripe, and the raw fruit is quite bitter. The berries are ready to harvest about two weeks after they first turn black, when their skin has changed from shiny to dull, and the flesh is very soft. The interior pulp will turn from greenish to purple when ripe. The flavor of the berries is improved by allowing them to remain on the plant until after the first frost. The plants have some cold tolerance and may continue to ripen fruit after light frosts.

As to cooking:

An unusual crop for gardeners to try, garden huckleberry bears small jet-black berries that are cooked and sweetened, and often combined with other fruits such as apples, lemons and grapes, to make jellies, preserves and pies. ... One plant should produce enough berries for a single pie.

Google for recipes like this pie [broken link].

Some years ago, I planted some currants as a medium height border with the benefit of having some fruits. I planted Alpine Currants, which produce a tiny, scattered fruit largely considered inedible or at least inconsequential. I still look at those bushes like they played a game, when really I just didn't do quite enough research. It's way down on my to-do list, but I'd love to dig them up for something else.

Cathy2's Source wrote:An unusual crop for gardeners to try, garden huckleberry bears small jet-black berries that are cooked and sweetened, and often combined with other fruits such as apples, lemons and grapes, to make jellies, preserves and pies.

That's a pretty lame endorsement. It reminds me of Sandra Boynton's book, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion":

Sandra Boynton, yes, the lady with the 'Hippo Birdie Two Ewe' greeting cards wrote:Carob is a brown powder made from the pulverized fruit of a Mediterranean evergreen. Some consider carob an adequate substitute for chocolate because it has some similar nutrients (calcium, phosphorus), and because it can, when combined with vegetable fat and sugar, be made to approximate the color and consistency of chocolate. Of course, the same arguments can as persuasively be made in favor of dirt.

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If you have to combine it with all those other fruits, they're somewhat toxic and bitter and require sweetening, are you really getting anything out of the huckleberries? I feel the same way about rhubarb, too.

Joel,

There was a Judy Holliday movie of two friends living in a garden apartment just getting by. Judy (at least I think it was Judy) worked for an answering service. The other was the man-trap who attracted just about everything. The man-trap worked a trade show where she was given a quantity of bran cereal samples. Judy reads the serving suggestion: "Bran cereal tastes good with strawberries and cream. Well, what wouldn't go well with strawberries and cream?"

If I haven't merged several movies together in my mind, there was another scene of dining on a budget. Order hot water, then produce your own tea bag. Order more hot water, then add ketchup to make something passable as tomato soup. Bill? What bill? I only ordered hot water.

Just tried one - tastes a little like a plum, but without the sweetness. Not bad. I may have to some sort of an appetizer-type savory tart.