Preserving summer sun in healthy treat

By Ruth Corman Rudy

If you have ever had the pleasure of picking berries right from the garden patch, or gathering wild berries from the fence rows or woods, you already know how wonderful fresh berries can be.

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As a tween, teen and young wife I participated in berry picking throughout the summer.

First were the wild strawberries that were about the size of my little finger. Usually, we could only find enough of the small berries for one or two meals of strawberry shortcake (a pound cake with a few strawberries and milk). Because of the scarcity of the wild strawberries, we were never allowed to eat any of the berries while we picked them.

We never grew cultivated strawberries on the farm, so my first real association with the large cultivated berries was as a young wife. We moved into a large old rambling farmhouse where a big patch of strawberries already existed. I was seven months pregnant one year when the strawberries were ripe and picking the berries was quite a chore.

Somehow, it seemed like the proliferate berries just kept getting ripe. I picked, picked and picked some more while my toddler son tried to help by crawling through the rows and smashing the berries. The berries were then prepared for freezing.

After the strawberries came the raspberries. They were at their peak of production around the Fourth of July. Raspberries were easy to pick and I carried an old blue granite kettle with a handle or a 2- quart empty King syrup container in which to place the ripe fruit.

I ate a lot of the berries while I was picking them, without realizing that the pigments that give the berries their color are good for your health. Berries are a great source of vitamins and the phytochemicals contained in the berries may help prevent some diseases.

Evidently, our grandparents knew about this health component, as berry dishes were numerous in their households. Today these large bowls with matching smaller serving bowls can be found at antique stores.

In between the raspberries and the blackberries, the wild blueberries (huckleberries) ripened. My husband and I used to scour the Bear Meadows near Boalsburg to pick the fruit that these small bushes had to offer.

Next in line were the blackberries, which I did not like to eat fresh and I thought were difficult to pick. Rather than growing in fence rows like the raspberries, they seemed to grow in clumps around stone piles.

To pick the berries, I was dressed in a frayed straw hat for sun protection, an old long-sleeve shirt for briar protection and an old pair of gum boots or goulashes for snake protection; I’m sure I looked like the scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz.”

Elderberries ripened in late August, just in time to interfere with attending Grange Fair. Early morning picking on a fair-day usually meant stained berry juice hands.

Most of the berries (except the strawberries) that I mentioned in this article were made into pies after being canned in jars or frozen.

In the wintertime, a berry pie transformed the summer sun’s energy into a mouth-watering treat to nourish our bodies.

Ruth Corman Rudy, of Potter Township, served seven terms in the state House of Representatives. Readers can e-mail her at Rudyruthguy@aol.com.