Day 7 of 12 Wild Days of Blue – The Countdown Continues!

Books are favorite items for the holiday shopping list, and curling up with the right one is just another way to get a dose of blue this season. Day 7 of our countdown ushers in some of our favorites of the year, and adds a couple of literary wild cards for the person that has everything blue.

Day 7: Good Reads

First up, we revisit Meg Wolff’s A Life In Balance: Delicious, Plant-Based Recipes for Optimal Health (Down East Books 2010). Her latest book provides the map for starting a life of better health and nutrition based on a plant-based diet. Bright colors and a wealth of fruits and vegetable preparations will please the palate and make a major contribution to wellness and disease prevention.

Gail J. VanWart is a Maine writer who is currently the fourth generation to maintain her native wild blueberries farm in Maine. Life Raked In (Out Of The Blue, 2011) condenses such a life’s harvest into a selection of poems, recipes and thoughts on life inspired by this perspective from the fields, a unique take on the wild blueberry life.

You may know Maine writer and food aficionado Kathy Gunst from her blog or her recently published book of the same name, Notes from a Maine Kitchen from Down East Books. She takes on the seasonal bounties of Maine using the calendar as her guide. The book provides a wonderful opportunity to give the gift of regionally-inspired food made from locally-sourced ingredients.

For the person on your list who prides themselves on being just a little odd, Maine’s own humorist Tim Sample and writing partner Steve Bither reveal what’s wild and wacky about their state in this third edition of Maine Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities, and Other Offbeat Stuff (Globe Pequot, 2011). One highlight includes the largest blueberry in the country, or as we fondly know it, Wild Blueberry Land in Columbia Falls, the blue geodesic dome  that is part bakery and part theme-park and wholly a piece of Maine wild blueberry culture.

If putting local foods on your plate is your mission, Lisa Turner will help with Eat Local, published by Down East Books. She has collected over one hundred recipes from Maine’s top chefs, farmers, home cooks, and some from her own kitchen, including her mother-in-law’s own Blueberry Buckle – a gift of true blue.

Finally, for the last word on the contribution of this little blue fruit to our everyday lives, comes Virginia Wright’s Wild Blueberry Book from Down East Books. It’s a charming and comprehensive primer of blueberry knowledge that provides an insider look from farmers, growers, scientists, and festival workers, as well as the region’s best recipes.

Why Wild Blueberries Should Be Part of Your Thanksgiving Dinner

Beat the Beige, Give Turkey Its Tang & Give Thanks for Wild Blues

Wild blue turkey head by tibchris, on Flickr

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License  by  tibchris 

You may think harvest season marks the one time of year when wild blueberries truly get their due. But if your idea of wild blues is stuck in August, it’s time to change your thinking: November is the wild blueberry’s heyday.

With homemade food in the spotlight and new recipes to impress the family on the radar, wild blueberries steal the show at a Thanksgiving spread. Maybe it’s because they are one of few blue foods that appear in nature. Or maybe it’s because they make everything a little more fun. Bring wild blueberries to dinner and you’ll put a smile on your host’s face, and you’ll be a hit at the kids’ table as well. When all the gobbling is over and the tryptophan kicks in, you’ll be thankful you did. Here’s why:

Taste. There’s nothing comparable to the sweet-sour-spicy taste of wild blueberries. They work well with just about any Thanksgiving dish and provide the ideal yin to the generous yang that makes up the usual Thanksgiving suspects like turkey, tubers, and stuffing.

Tradition. The best Thanksgiving dish puts a subtle twist on tradition, and wild blueberries fit the bill. Indigenous to Maine and eastern Canada, their presence provides a nod to native American foods. In fact, there are only three native North American fruits – Concord grapes, wild blueberries and cranberries – so you’d be remiss to leave out this essential berry.

Ease of cooking. Wild blueberries are a busy cook’s dream. They are smaller and more compact than their cultivated counterparts, and that helps them hold their shape for whatever you put them through. And, thanks to IQF, freezing preserves their individuality (not to mention their nutrition). They are great for baking, boiling for sauces, they work cold and warm, and they garnish as well as they cook.

Health benefits. Total indulgence is so yesterday. Today, there’s a trend toward maintaining healthy eating so even during the holidays your nutrition doesn’t go to pot. That’s where wild blueberries excel.  High in antioxidants, low in calories, and high in fiber, they satisfy the palate and nourish the body while still tasting like an indulgence.

Color. Seeking out colorful foods for Thanksgiving is a must. Because of the abundance of earth tones as a result of turkey, potato, stuffing, onions and other foods that are on the beige part of the spectrum, a spark of color is crucial to bring a Thanksgiving plate to life. Enter wild blueberries, a rare opportunity to add high-octane color to a piled-high platter.

Cranberries optional. If some members of your clan don’t care for the traditional cranberry sauce, wild blueberries save the day. Their flavor is a unique brand of sweet due to a wonderful natural flavor variation that is a result of a combination of several different varieties of plant that create this indigenous crop. Or keep the cranberries – they pair extremely well with blues, enhancing the taste of both in pies, sauce, and stuffing.

Cost. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, Thanksgiving dinner will be 13% more expensive this year than it was last year. The price of turkey alone is up .25/lb. If you’re hosting Thanksgiving dinner for a crowd, keeping costs down is key. The best advice? Think big. Buying ingredients in bulk helps, and oversize bags of frozen blues are economical and never go bad if they are unused. Avoiding pre-packaging is another way to stretch the food budget, and wild blueberries are a perfect unprocessed ingredient – it’s a frugal gourmet’s dream.

Plan Your Holiday Menu! How Will You Use Your Blues?

Cranberries and blueberries make a stellar taste combination. Impress the fam with this Cranberry and Wild Blueberry Pie. Or mix it up with lip-smacking Blue Cranberry Sauce, or some Homemade Cranberry Blueberry Sauce.

Looking for a Cranberry Sauce alternative? This Szechwan Crispy Duck with Chinese Wild Blueberry sauce creates a fantastic flavor profile. Using turkey instead of duck works equally well to show off these two tastes. Or make this very scoopable Wild Blueberry Salsa. Even Betty Crocker recommends adding cherries and blueberries to their Cranberry Stuffing recipe to vary the taste.

Done with traditional pie? Think outside of the circle – Wild Blueberry Grunt is a fun alternative to pumpkin pie, or you can impress the relatives with your culinary know-how by making Wild Blueberry Crème Brûlé.

Finally, if you’re looking for a meal opener or a great bring-with hors d’oeuvre, you’re covered with
Goat Cheese Tart with Caramelized Onions and Wild Blueberries – delicious and perfectly portable.

Comforted by Cobbler

When a delicious comfort food comes together with an ingredient that is a powerhouse of nutrition and disease prevention, well, it’s food nirvana.

Chef Jeff Buerhaus from (Maine’s own) Walter’s in Portland points to Blueberry Cobbler as one of those foods that are in the heavenly pocket. He joined radio host and culinary maven Chef Jamie Gwen recently on her radio show “Food & Wine with Chef Jamie Gwen” and disclosed that it was his all-time favorite comfort food. He makes it with dried Maine wild blueberries that are rehydrated to bring them back to their original taste, texture and nutrition (though frozen can be used, too). Buerhaus’ love for blueberries doesn’t stop there: he also puts Duck Breast with Blueberry Demiglaze on his list of favorites that feature the region’s most nutritiously delicious fruit.

Buerhaus also shares dishes that fit in perfectly at game time when the importance of noshing rivals that of touchdowns – it’s football season, after all, and if there is no jalapeño in your food then you just aren’t a sports fan. He has a uniquely tasty take on Asian-influenced foods, and he talks about how to bring that flair into half-time by making recipes such as Tuna Tataki Nachos ad Cracklin’ Calamari.

A Taste of Maine

Cheers to Chef Buerhaus for always making good use of blueberries at Walter’s, a destination if you find yourself in Portland Maine. He and an all-star lineup of chefs will be at Harvest on the Harbor in the city this weekend as well. Harvest on the Harbor is a food and wine festival that features three days of food samples, chef demos, culinary wonders and wine tastings. Many foodies will be extolling wild blueberries’ many virtues including their versatility – how could they not? – but to be honest, it will be their taste that is mostly on display and this flavor-focused culinary event.

Chow Chat

You can hear Chef Jamie Gwen’s California-based radio show online where she shares recipes and culinary wisdom. She brings restaurant news, wine 101 and interviews with the country’s leading chefs, cookbook authors and restaurateurs to her listeners with a signature gregariousness. And, her food and wine website is a fun resource for recipes and tips.

Celebrate the Cobbler!

Allrecipe claims the Very Best Cobbler.

Eating Well offers Peach Blueberry Cobbler.


WildBlueberries.com has Cobbler’s lesser-known cousin, Grunt.

They also offer a showcase of palate-pleasing blueberry-centered dishes including dessert recipes and a slew of snacks and sides that will serve discerning sports fans during pigskin season.

Go Blue!