Huckleberries are small bright blue, or dark blue, or black berries which grow wild near marshes in Michigan. They ripen in late July and early August. The berries look like blueberries but are smaller and sweeter. They have not been cultivated because of the time it takes for the plants to mature. The Indians and the early settlers set fire to the huckleberry patches. This stimulated new growth and made for more berries. Now, in 2013, there are fewer huckleberry marshes mostly due to lack of habitat.
The early settlers in Michigan harvested the berries for pies and sauce. There were no home freezers so the extra berries were canned, dried or made into jam to preserve them for winter. The Native Americans in the area picked them and sold them door to door. They also dried them as a method of preservation.
On Sunday May 1, 2011 the internet site Daily Kos had an article on Native American Foods by Ojibwa. She reported that the Indian women gathered 2-4 liters of huckleberries a day and dried them for storage. A medicinal tea was brewed from them that was used to treat heart trouble, arthritis and rheumatism. Picking huckleberries was a social event where different bands would come together and have horse racing, singing, and dancing. There were many sacred rituals associated with the berries.
Gerrish Township is located in the Houghton Lake, Higgins Lake area of Michigan. In the Gerrish Township Centennial, 1880-1980 book on page 37 there is a picture of a huckleberry market place. “The huckleberry business from the picking to the sale was big business and paid better than any form of work, anywhere, in those days. “ In an article in the Roscommon News July 31, 1885: “The crop of huckleberries in this vicinity is immense. Shipments have been large and will continue so for some time to come and have brought quite a large amount of money into the hands of the pickers. The value of the berries amounting to some $6,000 has been distributed among the farmers.”
During the logging era in Michigan history the menu of the logging camps in the entire area featured huckleberries. They were used in pies, muffins, pancakes, and just as sauce.
The berries are a favorite food for bears and since the introduction of wild turkeys - they are eaten by turkeys also. This year, 2013, the berries are ripening a couple of weeks early and there is a bumper crop which the turkeys have not found. I mentioned this to my friends and invited them to come pick with me. This brought a flood of memories of “going with their parents and grandparents and having to pick those little berries.” People remembered large ant hills, getting in a yellow jacket nest and being stung all over, and playing dead and spilling all the berries. There was always pickers that ate the berries and did not put them in their pails.
Because the bushes are located near marshes in remote areas it was a pasttime of quiet beauty. Frances Beck was an early settler of Coldwater Township and she remembered picking berries in the evening after the chores were done. She remembered the quiet of the marsh, the birds and animals that shared the patch with her. She had owned our land and at the end of her life she was in a nursing home. Shortly before her death my husband and I picked and took her a dish of berries. She was thrilled and said it was the best thing anyone could have done for her.
Early recipes using the berries were simple. Add the berries to home made muffins or pancake batter. The berries were stewed with a little water and sugar and eaten with cream. Huckleberry pie was simply a pie crust filled with raw berries, sugar, and a thickening, then baked until the crust was browned and the berries were cooked.
Any recipe that calls for blueberries can be used with huckleberries.
I generally make this as a pie but for a group tarts are easier to serve.
Keep in mind that the berries are small and grow very low to the ground, not easy picking, so I add a layer of cream cheese thus using fewer berries. The berries are so sweet and flavorful that fewer berries do not spoil the taste.
Recipe: Huckleberry Pie
Bake a regular pie crust. Cool.
Whip an 8 oz. package of softened cream cheese, 1 cup sour cream and ˝ cup sugar, and ˝ t. vanilla together. Add a layer of the cream mixture to the bottom of the baked crust.
Set aside about 2 cups of raw huckleberries.
Crush another cup or so of berries in a microwave proof bowl. Mix 2T water and 1 T. corn starch, add ˝ cup sugar. Mix the cornstarch mixture with the crushed berries. Microwave until thick and clear. Cool the cooked berries for a couple of minutes stir this mixture into the raw berries.
Put the berry mixture on top of the cream cheese layer in the pie crust. Cool at room temperature then refrigerate.
Ready to eat.
Add sweetened whipped cream to the top if desired.