Wild Blueberry Pie
Blueberry pie, hot from the oven, sits on the sideboard to cool just a bit before it is brought to the table to be shared. The server, who is also the baker, cuts into it. The crust, layered and friable, shatters beneath the knife blade. Dark purple juices roll out, a syrupy cascade that flows slowly across the plate, glistening and sticky, surrounding berries that pop on the palate with the flavor of northern sunlight. Gathered by hand in the early morning, they were still dew-damp when they arrived in the kitchen. They were simply rinsed, sugared, and tumbled into a deep dish between two layers of lardy crust that turned deep gold in the oven’s heat.
Maine wild blueberries are tiny and sweet, with a hint of acid and an earthiness that bespeaks their terroir, the peaty soil resting on granite that forms Maine’s blueberry barrens. They grow only in Maine and parts of maritime Canada, and they are precious. Calling them “wild” is actually about as accurate as calling Maine lobster “wild.” Both emerge from the wild, and both reproduce in it, but it takes the guiding hand of humans to coax the wild stock to fruition.
What does Maine blueberry pie taste like? Like summer on the coast of Maine, like sun-bathed, salt-licked pastures. If you’re the cook, you make it once a week or so during the short season in late July and August, and no one ever gets tired of it. You make it with love, you serve it with vanilla ice cream, and when it’s all gone, when the last blueberry of the season has been baked into a pie and consumed, you look around you at all those happy faces, smiling through their blue-stained lips and teeth, and think, well there! That will do until next summer, when the blueberries come around again. — NANCY HARMON JENKINS
Nancy Harmon Jenkins is the author of eight books about food, including, mostly recently, The Four Seasons of Pasta, written with her daughter, chef Sara Jenkins. A former New York Times staff writer, she has also written for Saveur, Food + Wine,The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications.
Wild Blueberry Pie
Blueberry pie, hot from the oven, sits on the sideboard to cool just a bit before it is brought to the table to be shared. The server, who is also the baker, cuts into it. The crust, layered and friable, shatters beneath the knife blade. Dark purple juices roll out, a syrupy cascade that flows slowly across the plate, glistening and sticky, surrounding berries that pop on the palate with the flavor of northern sunlight. Gathered by hand in the early morning, they were still dew-damp when they arrived in the kitchen. They were simply rinsed, sugared, and tumbled into a deep dish between two layers of lardy crust that turned deep gold in the oven’s heat.
Maine wild blueberries are tiny and sweet, with a hint of acid and an earthiness that bespeaks their terroir, the peaty soil resting on granite that forms Maine’s blueberry barrens. They grow only in Maine and parts of maritime Canada, and they are precious. Calling them “wild” is actually about as accurate as calling Maine lobster “wild.” Both emerge from the wild, and both reproduce in it, but it takes the guiding hand of humans to coax the wild stock to fruition.
What does Maine blueberry pie taste like? Like summer on the coast of Maine, like sun-bathed, salt-licked pastures. If you’re the cook, you make it once a week or so during the short season in late July and August, and no one ever gets tired of it. You make it with love, you serve it with vanilla ice cream, and when it’s all gone, when the last blueberry of the season has been baked into a pie and consumed, you look around you at all those happy faces, smiling through their blue-stained lips and teeth, and think, well there! That will do until next summer, when the blueberries come around again. — NANCY HARMON JENKINS
Nancy Harmon Jenkins is the author of eight books about food, including, mostly recently, The Four Seasons of Pasta, written with her daughter, chef Sara Jenkins. A former New York Times staff writer, she has also written for Saveur, Food + Wine,The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications.
