Fresh Berries

Types of summer fresh berries 

My Fav Fruit

If someone was to ask me what my favorite fruit was, I would have to generalize a bit and say, berries. I grew up picking berries whether from farms or the wild.

My mom would transform the into jam that served as a summer reminder on my January toast. As a boy, I didn't mind picking noticeable strawberries or conveniently placed blueberries, but black raspberries foraged from the forest behind our house was a different story. The hordes of mosquitoes were vampires who guarded these dark jewels. And if you doused yourself with enough repellent, you still had to escape the scratching wrath of the thorns that punctuated the curved berry branches.

I decided one year to go on blackberry-picking-strike. My mother said I couldn't get any blackberries for that whole year, and I agreed with the deal. That year I rose to the challenge and, I had frozen and jammed strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. It didn't bother me a bit to not have those black raspberries. Nowadays, the black raspberries and I have made reparations!

Benefits of Berries - perfect for the person cooking for one

A reason why I like berries so much is that they are perfect for the person cooking for one.

• Berries are perky, colorful little nuggets packed with flavor bigger than themselves. Most people are now familiar with the health discoveries of berries' phytochemicals, the deep pigments that give them their color.

• They span the seasons with strawberries in late spring to cranberries in autumn, other fruits have more shortened seasons. When one fades from the market stand, another takes its place.

• Berries can be used in so many ways in throughout your daily meals. You don't need to chop or peel them. And there's no peel or core left (other than the green tops of strawberries). Just lightly sprinkle them with water, and they're ready.

• Their small size means that you can eat just one or a handful depending upon your appetite, unlike eating just half a banana.

How to buy 

• Some people complain about berries' quick perishability and delicate nature, yet that can be seen as a benefit. Berries have nothing to hide about their age. A couple of berries with a soft spot or two is acceptable, especially for fragile raspberries. If you see a few moldy berries in a container, you can be fairly sure they are not the freshest. Mold spores can quickly spread to other berries. 

• Put your nose up to the berries, and ignore others putting their nose up to you. Berries should smell like what they are. Strawberries should smell heavy of strawberry scent. Blueberries give off their unmistakable smell. Cranberries are somewhat an exception as they don't give off much of a scent.

• Produce managers and farmers are honest, hard-working people. Sometimes you may run into one who is not so honest. They know that people desire perfect-looking fruit, so they place a few mouth watering, picture-perfect specimens on top to conceal some not-so-hot ones below deck. Use your eyes and peer down between the top berries to assess the ones below. 

• Don't get pouty over the price of a container of berries. If you have ever hand-picked berries, you know the price is well deserved. Small and fragile, they often need hand-picked and given extra care to get them to market right away. Besides, if you're eating in season, the prices are reasonable.

How to store

• Keep them dry. Do not wash your berries until you are ready to use them - even if they have a little dirt on them (e.g. strawberries). Introducing excess moisture that gets trapped between them as they are nestled in their container is an open door for fungus (mold) to grow. 
• All berries freeze well for later usage. It is a treat to have blueberries on a cold February morning.  

How to freeze  

Learn how to freeze fresh berries to savor them later. 

Berry Ideas

• Before you attempt to sweeten your berries, taste one to evaluate its natural sweetness. Berries' sugar content varies on many factors, and you can't tell just by looking at them. After tasting one, determine how much sweetner (if any at all) is needed to bring it up to your liking. Once you actually begin to taste your fruit before you heap on the sugar, you will begin to sense the overpowering sweetness that masks the fruit in processed fruit-flavored products (such as yogurt).
• Top a simple cold, boxed cereal with berries.
• Add to quick oatmeal as it cooks for a few minutes on the stove - it's sooo much better than the individually packaged, artificially flavored varieties
• Pack some in a small food jar for your packed lunch (these are remarkably strong and great for reusing)
• If you want blueberry pancakes, but don't want the dark bleeding that happens from the berries, simply dot the freshly poured batter on the skillet with the berries. The berries will be evenly spaced and not bleed much.
• Blueberries, with their deep, dark flavor pair surprisingly well with steak. Nudge them toward a savory slant with a sautee of soft onion, a splash of red wine, some steak drippings, and a bit of butter until it's reduced and thickened.
• Plain vanilla pudding, custard, or ice cream gets dressed up with a some berries sprinkled on top. Who needs sprinkles (jimmies)?

Did you know . . . ?

What makes a berry a berry?

Not all fruits that we consider "berries" at the produce stand are actually berries, botanically speaking. To understand this, one needs to observe the fruit in its previous form - a flower.

True berries are fruits that result from one ripened plant ovary. Yes, the purpose of flowers is for sexual reproduction, and the plant wraps its seeds around a tasty fruit to entice animals to spread the seeds. The seeds (baby plants) from the single ovary are clustered toward the center of the fleshy fruit which is covered by a very, fine outer skin (exocarp). Slice open a "berry", and peer inside to discover intricate little structures whose ultimate purpose is the plant's reproduction.

Blueberries, cranberries, gooseberries, currants and yes, even grapes and tomatoes are true berries. Blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries are actually different forms of aggregate fruits. Aggregate fruits are formed from clusters of ovaries that mege to form a single fruit. Notice when you bite into these fruits the seeds are not all clustered together. Some consider the strawberry an accessory fruit (variation from an aggregate) because the luscious red portion we eat is not entirely generated from the ovary.