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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] fruit can help us

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  • From: Heron Breen <breen@fedcoseeds.com>
  • To: Mike Levine <crunchy@oldweb.com>, North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] fruit can help us
  • Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 22:19:42 -0600


Hi All,
I put away a bit of fruit, and definitely NEED it to keep going. My son and I
picked Strawberries this summer, which was a real scarcity here this summer,
and
froze many quarts. Smoothies and sauce for yogurt or pancakes in December
seem to
be our pattern. Right now the wild Blueberry is an every night comfort food,
with
the thickest cream in existence from the horse-powered dairy a few miles
away.
Blueberries drive the blues away! I always freeze peaches, because maybe I am
too
lazy for canning, and more smoothies appear. Cranberries really do add a Zing
to my
attitude, especially when sweetened as sauce with pure honey from my family
hives
and local keepers. That Honey taste...makes darkest days seem worthwhile. I
am
starting to make applesauce, and do it all winter as fruits soften. I am
lucky
enough to have a small rootcellar, in addition to my chest freezer. Oooh, and
sooooo many Blackberries from bountiful wild patches! A great summer for
them, and
they just kept coming. We eat most of them fresh, but I froze a few quarts to
make
cobblers and sauces. Frozen and uncooked they taste BLech, but frozen then
cooked
they are very fine, Clemintine. And to top it off, at some point when a
romantic
interlude is needed, a few precious pints of wild black raspberries have been
squirelled away. The best thing about all of this is I picked it all with my
son,
who is three (two during the summer). Seeing him chowing down on fruit, I
learned
from him: He would only accept really premium berries. He would ask for a
blackberry, try it and spit any even slightly unprime ones out. All the ones
he ate
were the best of the best. Couldn't fool him at all. Even this Sunday,
driving home
in sub-freezing weather, he asked me to stop the car and pick an apple for
him from
these good wild cookers we had "explored" together earlier in the Fall. Just
the
memories of these moments are as nourishing as the fruit itself.
Next year maybe he and I will try to get back into canning. For my limited
experience, the best peaches I have ever eaten have come from Harvard,
Massachusetts. Just a side note, and encouragement for all you peach folks
out
there! Fruit in my freezer is as important to me as the many cords of wood in
my
barn. Proof I am ready to live through another Winter. I can't believe I am
saying
this in early winter, but I have been day-dreaming of Fiddleheads (Ostrich
Ferns)!
I love them in the spring with butter and vinegar, with roasted Parsnips.
Blessings in this Holiday Season,
Heron Breen
zone 4 Maine




  • Re: [NAFEX] fruit can help us, Heron Breen, 12/07/2004

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