Editorial consulting by the Culinary Institute of America

Many cuisines around the world traditionally serve specific condiments and side dishes each time they eat certain foods. Indian food has Raita, a cool cucumber yogurt sauce that tames the spice and heat of curries and chutneys. Thai food has the ubiquitous Nuoc Cham sauce, made of salty fish sauce, sweet date palm sugar, and sour lime juice.

Wine and food magazines have long been publishing guidelines and “flavor wheels” to help everyone find their way to the perfect beverage and food pairings. Serving tart goat cheese? Try sauvignon blanc. Salted caramel ice cream? Try an oatmeal stout.

These combinations work because they are guided by a few principles that are not only appropriate for beverage and food pairings but also for combining certain foods together. If we need to pay attention to the fat, acid, salt, sweetness, bitterness and texture of the food, we can become proficient in the language of food pairing.

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One principle that works very well is the idea that “those that grow together, go together.” Native Americans grew corn, whose stalk was used as the trellis for beans and which protected the squash below. Together, they are the perfect culinary match that we call succotash. In the south of France, there are a variety of wild herbs that grow everywhere making up the landscape called “garigue.” Young lamb feed on these wild herbs and are subsequently cooked in these herbs as well. You may know the flavor well: It’s called Herbs de Provence.

Yet sometimes a perfect pairing is solely about texture of the food and the body, viscosity or effervescence of the beverage. This is why grilled red meat, such as beef rib eye, goes so well with a big Cabernet Sauvignon. There is enough fat in the meat to quell the tannins of the wine and allow you to taste the fruit flavors of the grape.

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This principle works well in the reverse too. Consider a food like Wild Blueberries, which are rich in tannin, acid, and sweetness. When looking to pair the perfect food or beverage with these tasty wild berries, look no further than game meats.  I like to cook game meats such as duck – which is rich in fat and umami – with Wild Blueberries because it contrasts the tannin and acidity of the berries and brings out their intense blueberry flavor. It makes sense, too, because ducks also live where Wild Blueberries grow and they love to snack on them as much as I do!

Give this recipe a try: Smoked Duck Breast with Wild Blueberry Mostarda

About the Author 

Chef Rebecca Peizer, C.H.E. C.E.C.

Associate Professor of Culinary Arts
Culinary Institute of America at Greystone

Rebecca’s passion for food set her on a path to the Culinary Institute of America where she graduated in 2000. From there, she set off to New York City where she became a private chef. She took her next big step in the culinary world when she moved to California and opened Roux, a restaurant in St. Helena in the heart of the Napa Valley. Roux quickly took off and theSan Francisco Chronicle named it Top 10 Restaurants in the Bay Area 2001. On the heels of that honor, Food & Wine named her Top 10 Sous Chefs in America 2002. Over the course of her career, Rebecca has had the opportunity to work with many great chefs including Jacques Pepin, Martin Yan, Bradly Ogden, Cindy Pawlcyn, and Julia Childs. She has catered events for presidential candidates, Napa Valley winemakers, and prominent artists, and now shares her passion for food and wine with students at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley.

Editorial consulting by the Culinary Institute of America

The other day I ate the most extraordinary piece of salmon I have ever tasted.  It was farm-raised in Loch Duart in the wilderness of Sutherland, Scotland, one of the least populated places in Europe.  The people who farm these salmon say that their farming techniques are based on their “commitment involved in living and working in one of the last virtually untouched areas of the world.”

Though the salmon is not technically wild, the fishery is managed to maximize the natural potential of the environment, in stark contrast to large commercial farming operations that impose a crop onto its surroundings. The people who work for Loch Duart know what it means to leverage the natural environment to create great-tasting fish.

This got me to thinking about other products that have been enriched with human intervention guided by the encouraging natural, wild conditions. Grape vines have grown wild for millennia both in Europe and North America. They were actually the first wild food the Vikings saw when they discovered North America around 1000AD and they named this continent “Vineland” because of it.   Grape vines will easily grow back each year after harvest and winter dormancy without any help from humans.  But to enhance their yield, flavor and taste, we have used our knowledge of pruning and trellising to increase sunlight exposure and airflow. The result is a diverse crop of grapes, each with its own distinct terroir.

There are some wild food products with which humans have very little interaction other than trying to mimic what spontaneously happens in nature. Wild game meats like boar and venison live on ranches with little interaction from humans until they are harvested.  Some ranchers, like Broken Arrow Ranch in Texas have realized that in order to sell the best product possible, they minimize stress on the animals, creating a more flavorful and tender product, by bringing in a mobile processing facility rather than  transporting the animal to a facility to be processed.  This “field harvesting” they believe is the only way to go.

Wild Blueberries are indigenous and have grown and spread naturally on the barrens of Eastern Maine and Canada for centuries. For over a hundred years, growers and producers have served as stewards of the land and of this delicious berry and work hard to honor a food system as Mother Nature intended, ensuring that these Wild Blueberries taste like they did 10,000 years ago.

The soil where Wild Blueberries thrive is naturally acidic and today’s growers use natural sulfur applications, a practice that changes the environment, to   lower  soil pH levels which is beneficial to Wild Blueberries but  helps to keep weeds and other invasive vegetative species from taking over the wild fields. The tradition of clearing the fields of rocks and trees where appropriate in order to expose the plants to more light so they can flourish has been a practice since Wild Blueberries were commercially harvested in 1840 to feed Union soldiers during the Civil war.

For Nature’s Better Blueberry, Go Wild!

FIND THE BEST WILD BLUEBERRY SUPPLIER TO SATISFY YOUR NEEDS

Another common practice by growers and producers is to use a two-year cropping cycle, pruning half the land to within an inch of the ground to encourage new stems and flower bud growth and preparing the other half for the Wild Blueberry harvest from July through August. This pruning practice disrupts disease and insect cycles naturally reducing pest damage with a fallow vegetative year. Occasionally, growers may irrigate their fields up to one inch per month if there is not enough rainfall.  This minimal watering, along with harsh winters and soil conditions inhospitable to other plants all work together to stimulate a hardy, dense more nutritious, and more delicious berry. The next time you eat a Wild Blueberry, see if you can taste the difference between the Wild Blueberry and the regular cultivated blueberry fruit.

Give this recipe a try: Dried WIld Blueberry and Almond Granola

About the Author 

Chef Rebecca Peizer, C.H.E. C.E.C.

Associate Professor of Culinary Arts
Culinary Institute of America at Greystone

Rebecca’s passion for food set her on a path to the Culinary Institute of America where she graduated in 2000. From there, she set off to New York City where she became a private chef. She took her next big step in the culinary world when she moved to California and opened Roux, a restaurant in St. Helena in the heart of the Napa Valley. Roux quickly took off and theSan Francisco Chronicle named it Top 10 Restaurants in the Bay Area 2001. On the heels of that honor, Food & Wine named her Top 10 Sous Chefs in America 2002. Over the course of her career, Rebecca has had the opportunity to work with many great chefs including Jacques Pepin, Martin Yan, Bradly Ogden, Cindy Pawlcyn, and Julia Childs. She has catered events for presidential candidates, Napa Valley winemakers, and prominent artists, and now shares her passion for food and wine with students at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley.

Food lovers across America are waking up to the resurgence of Wild Foods – a way of life and a way of eating that was celebrated a half-century ago by the late Euell Gibbons in his famous series of 1960s-era books (Stalking the Wild Asparagus, Stalking the Good Life, A Wild Way To Eat). A 1974 television ad for Grape-Nutscereal actually featured Gibbons famously asking viewers: “Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.” Gibbons became a household name with that ad, and so did wild foods.

Recently, an article in EATER (circulation 2 million) revealed just how far wild edibles have come, and particularly, the potent little Wild Blueberry, which is dominating the Wild Foods trend sweeping (once again) across America. The article states that one of the biggest hurdles is simply to educate chefs, restaurants and consumers that there’s a stark difference between wild and cultivated foods (yes, those huge, mushy, tasteless berries are NOT wild).

Restaurants & Food Companies Experiment with Wild Blueberries

In a meaty feature-length article, reporter Lisa Elaine Held examines the rising locavore trend and reveals how authentic, untamed Wild Blueberries are poised to experience a renaissance. EATER showcases a host of celebrated chefs, restaurants, and packaged food companies that are seizing the opportunity to ride the Wild Foods trend and incorporate more Wild Blueberries into their menus. Among them:

• Luke’s Lobster (started in 2009 in Manhattan’s East Village, now in 7 states) just unveiled The Wild Blue Salad: a lobster tail on arugula, with roasted sunflower seeds, cannellini beans, shredded red cabbage topped with a pile of Wild Blueberries. In addition to the salad, Wild Blueberries , are featured in six recipes from bruschetta to gazpacho, in the their cookbook Real Maine Food
• Clinton Street Baking Company (with restaurants in NYC, Toyko, Dubai & Singapore) is serving “Pancakes with Warm Maple Butter and Wild Maine Blueberry.” People are lining up for these pancakes and they have become something of a media sensation.
• Colicchio & Sons (rated by Time.com as one of the best restaurants the world) Chef Stephen Collucci considers Wild Blueberries an extra special treat. “Maine blueberries are coveted little gems of sunshine for me and the pastry team,” he says.

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• Vinland (Portland, Maine) renowned Maine locavore chef David Levi uses the wild blues year-round in his Portland, Maine, restaurant. You can find them in shrubs, salads, dessert, and even dried with seaweed. Last February, Levi hosted a mind-blowing dinner in Manhattan for editors and influencers that showcased wild blueberries.
• Harvest (the iconic Harvard Square restaurant) Executive chef Tyler Kinnett is a big fan of Wild Blues. He says the concentrated flavor of Wild Blueberries pairs perfectly with meat dishes, such as pork. This Cambridge restaurant has been featuring wild foods for decades.
• Tako (a surf-vibe restaurant located in Pittsburgh) offers handmade tacos of an Asian persuasion and a selection of Wild Blueberry inspired beverages. Tako beverage director Erika Clark fell in love with Wild Blueberries on a trip to Maine and now she makes shrubs with Wild Blueberries to use in cocktails throughout the year.
• Panera’s top-selling Wild Blueberry Scones are a constant on the Panera menu.
• Clif Bar has a brand new Wild Blueberry Almond Trail Mix Bar
• Stonewall Kitchen’s Wild Maine Blueberry Jam is a longstanding best-seller.

• This month, Organic Valley released a 6-ounce Grassmilk Wild Blueberry Yogurt Cup. The 100 percent grass-fed cup features cream-on-top, whole milk yogurt crafted from 100 percent grass-fed, non-homogenized organic Grassmilk milk, along with organic wild blueberries.

What American chefs are saying about Wild Blueberries

It’s illuminating to see what leading American chefs have to say about Wild Blueberries and how they’re using them .

“The same storytelling we bring to our lobster, we want to bring to Wild Blueberries.” – Ben Conniff, Luke’s Lobster

“One of my favorite things to do with Wild Blueberries is to make an agrodolce for meat dishes.” – Tyler Kinnett, Harvest

“I absolutely love the taste and aesthetics of these berries; they’re the epitome of the saying ‘good things come in small packages.’” – Stephen Collucci, Colicchio & Sons

“The wild have a very concentrated, nice burst of blueberry flavor more than the cultivated ones.” – Neil Kleinberg, Clinton Street Baking Company

“We were looking for a salad that was really healthy and screamed ‘summer.’” – Ben Conniff, Luke’s Lobster

If you’re a restaurant or packaged food company that’s seeking exceptional ingredients that will your differentiate your brand, consider the wisdom of the late Euell Gibbons. He may have not been the world’s leading brand expert, but he did comprehend the timeless, indisputable power of wild food.

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Editorial consulting by the Culinary Institute of America

Whether you believe that mayonnaise was invented by the Spanish or French, I’m pretty sure the creators did not consider spicing it up with a little Southeast Asian pepper sauce. That said, Sriracha mayonnaise is one of the trendiest sandwich and dipping spreads on today’s menus. This isn’t the outrageous fusion food of the 1980s and 1990s when the term got a bad rap. Today’s fusion is an emerging food trend where the flavors actually work in concert with each other! “Con-fusion” is long gone and has been replaced with a whole new set of flavor combinations that make sense.

The New Fusion of 2016 is about embracing authentic flavors from around the world and creating innovative ways to meld them together. With social media and television offering culinary education and global travel to the masses, food manufacturers and chefs are taking hold and beginning to leverage that sense of adventure. Global flavors, whether spice blends from North Africa or Kaffir lime from Thailand, infiltrate everything from breakfast and snack time to desserts and ready-to-eat foods.

What was once a crème brulé, is now a butterscotch miso crème brulé from Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. The umami-rich miso boosts the caramel notes of the butterscotch and burnt sugar. The classic Japanese spicy tuna handroll is now a sushi burrito from San Francisco based Sushirrito. Mash-ups like these, with unique ingredients, are increasingly being seen across consumer package goods as well, from Thai spiced tortilla chips with flax seeds (RW Garcia), to curry flavored sodas (Ramune), and canned beans with, you guessed it, Sriracha (Bush’s).

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With the world at our fingertips, it is tempting to include an exotic ingredient or even substitute more traditional ingredients with those from another culture because anything is possible. For instance, we could make an Italian basil pesto with Hawaiian macadamia nuts instead of pine nuts and charge a premium for the differentiated product. Or substitute Wild Blueberries for mango in a Mexican corn salsa. This would not only showcase the blueberries in a unique way but also add color and some sweet tart flavor zing to this ubiquitous condiment. I’ve included a recipe so you can see for yourself!

Wild blueberries are sweet, tart, and tannic and therefore lend themselves to a wide variety of global flavors that grow in drastically different environments. Combine frozen Wild Blueberries with tropical ginger in a smoothie and you have a great fusion of superfoods that satisfies one’s nutritional needs as well as the desire for exciting flavor combinations. Add dried Wild Blueberries to the traditional apricot, fig, and almond garnish in a Moroccan Lamb Tagine and you have a North American-North African twist on this authentic dish of game meat and dried fruits.

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Give this recipe a try: Carnitas Tacos with Wild Blueberry and Charred Corn Salsa

About the Author 

Chef Rebecca Peizer, C.H.E. C.E.C.

Associate Professor of Culinary Arts
Culinary Institute of America at Greystone

Rebecca’s passion for food set her on a path to the Culinary Institute of America where she graduated in 2000. From there, she set off to New York City where she became a private chef. She took her next big step in the culinary world when she moved to California and opened Roux, a restaurant in St. Helena in the heart of the Napa Valley. Roux quickly took off and theSan Francisco Chronicle named it Top 10 Restaurants in the Bay Area 2001. On the heels of that honor, Food & Wine named her Top 10 Sous Chefs in America 2002. Over the course of her career, Rebecca has had the opportunity to work with many great chefs including Jacques Pepin, Martin Yan, Bradly Ogden, Cindy Pawlcyn, and Julia Childs. She has catered events for presidential candidates, Napa Valley winemakers, and prominent artists, and now shares her passion for food and wine with students at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley.

Luke’s Lobster has thrived by stoking American appetites for the quintessential tastes of Maine in the nation’s hippest urban areas.

With 21 locations, sales of $20.9 million in 2015, and a raft of praise from tastemakers like Zagat’s, The New York Times, and GQ, the chain of eateries has flourished since it debuted in Manhattan’s East Village in 2009. Discriminating foodies have clamored to indulge in the signature lobster roll, and to soak in the authentically-Maine vibe, surrounded by lobster traps, buoys, and mementos from Vacationland.

So it’s no surprise that Wild Blueberries have been an essential ingredient in their recipe for success.

You can taste the indigenous superfruit in Luke’s Wild Blueberry Lemonade made by Green Bee Craft Beverages in Brunswick, Maine, and its Wild Blueberry Bites, made by Milk and Cookies Bakery in Greenwich Village. Some locations feature Wild Maine Blueberry Ice Cream made by Gifford’s Ice Cream of Skowhegan, Maine. Wild Blueberry Balsamic sauce is served at its Grilled Tail Cart at the Whole Foods in Williamsburg, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.  Wild Maine Blueberry Pie made by Four & Twenty Blackbirds bakery in Brooklyn, is available at its Luke’s Lobster location in Park Slope, Brooklyn. In June 2016, Luke’s Lobster added a Wild Blue Salad to its summer menu, which features Wild Blueberries alongside a lobster tail, arugula, roasted sunflower seeds, cannellini beans, and red cabbage.

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The use of Wild Blueberries was a no-brainer says the company’s president, Ben Conniff, who cherishes his memories of eating Wild Blueberries as a kid during his family’s summer vacations in Maine.

            “I remember eating them by the handful and having them in pancakes and muffins,” he says. “So being a restaurant that is an ambassador for Maine, we looked to incorporate more Maine ingredients. Wild Blueberries are among the most important.”

            But nostalgia aside, taste was the biggest selling point. Conniff says that eating a Wild Blueberry is “a totally different experience” than having a conventionally-grown fruit.

“It’s just so much more enjoyable,” he says. “The tartness is what I love most about Wild Blueberries. A conventionally-grown blueberry just doesn’t pop the way a Wild one does. And it [the conventionally-grown blueberry] doesn’t have the tight skin that makes it texturally pleasing when you bite into it. “

Customers have noticed the Wild difference too.

“They just go nuts for it,” he says. “Most people outside of Maine haven’t tried Wild Blueberries before. They’re not aware that there’s such a huge difference between Wild and conventionally grown. And they’re just blown away by the flavor.”

            What’s more, Wild Blueberries fit into the commitment to sustainability that is the heart of the Luke’s Lobster brand.

“What’s most important to us is the Wild Blueberry farmers’ stewardship of the land and their environment,” Conniff says. “ Whether they’re certified organic or not, everyone is taking care of their land in a more traditional and eco-friendly, biodiverse way.”

Conniff and co-founder Luke Holden source their Wild Blueberries from Josh Pond, a certified organic grower in Whiting, Maine.

”It’s important for us to be working with people who aren’t looking for the quickest way to maximize yield at the expense of the environment, nutrition, or quality of the food,” Conniff says. “They [Josh Pond] use goats to thin the weed competition, and have honey bees for pollination. It’s right in line with the way that the folks in the Wild Maine Blueberry industry treat their product and their land.”

            Conniff knows that the Wild nature of the berry carries powerful brand cache with customers, too.

“People are starting to realize the sacrifices we made for the sake of pumping out yield for commodity products—as opposed to taking care of the soil and environment, and creating a food system that is sustainable,” he says. “A lot of people are looking to avoid products that are leading us on this same continued destructive path, and trying to find products that are sustainable and restorative to the environment—whether that’s lobster that’s fished with rigorous sustainability regulations, or Wild Blueberries that are managed in a way that’s not detrimental to the environment.”

Luke Lobster uses fresh Wild Blueberries while they’re in season, and frozen Wild Blueberries during the rest of the year. Doing a light pickling of the frozen berries helps keep the berries crisp and fresh tasting as they thaw. They’ll continue to use the frozen berries in baked goods throughout the year, and likely bring back the popular Wild Blue Salad in the summer of 2017.

Wild Blueberries also feature prominently in Conniff and Holden’s book, Real Maine Food:  100 Plates from Fishermen, Farmers, Pie Champs, and Clam Shacks  (Rizzoli, 2015). Six recipes call for Wild Blueberries: Blueberry Mignonette for Oysters on the Half shell, Leg of Lamb with Blueberry Mint Chutney, Wild Blueberry Gazpacho, Wild Blueberry Bruschetta, Blueberry Pancakes, and Blueberry Pie.

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For the restaurant, and the book, Conniff and co-founder Luke Holden never even considered using highbush varieties of the berry.

“ I just can’t bring myself to eat a conventionally grown-blueberry,” he says. “And I would never put something on the menu that I didn’t think was the best.”

Editorial consulting by the Culinary Institute of America

Think of your taste buds as thousands of switches that turn off or on every time you put something into your mouth. Every time they fire, they send a pattern of information to your brain to be processed, similar to a computer code. A salted caramel chocolate, for example, might send a pattern of salty/sweet/sweet/salty/sweet/bitter as it dissolves over your palate.Now imagine that these switches are concentrated in certain locations, can vary in the length of time they stay open, and can send signals of different intensity, and you start to get an idea of the complex world of flavors. In all, the human palate is capable of processing as many as 100,000 different flavors.

Just for fun, let’s say that the flavor switches on your palate can turn off and on rapidly as different components of the food are introduced. For example, nuoc cham – the popular Vietnamese dipping sauce – might have a sour map of slightly sour/really sour/sour again/slightly sour again. If you’re a fan of nuoc cham, then your mouth and your senses take pleasure and delight as these layers upon layers of flavor create depth.

The fact is that complex flavors are generally thought to be more pleasing and, it’s no surprise that they also command a higher price. The most celebrated coffees, olive oils, and even bottled waters are perfect examples. It may surprise you to know that Wild Blueberries belong in this group as well. They really can’t help it – the average field of Wild Blueberries contains hundreds of different cultivars, each with its own distinct attributes. Certain cultivars are sweeter than others. Some have more tannins. Others are deeper in color. Some even burst open differently in the mouth when consumed, offering layered texture and even sound conducted by the jawbone to the brain. The color, texture, smell, and flavors that spread across your entire palate make Wild Blueberries a symphony for the senses.

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Chefs, winemakers, and cultures across the globe have long understood the appeal of combining flavors. In Napa Valley the process of blending individual grape varietals to create a multi-layered wine is aided by science and technology (i.e. very expensive equipment). Indigenous cultures, on the other hand, have, for centuries, created spice rubs to flavor and preserve their foods, such as Ras al Hanout from Morocco or Za’attar spice from the Middle East, made by home cooks using no particular recipe other than “a dash of this, a handful of that.” What ties these two examples together is how the depth of flavor is maximized when there is a great understanding of the ingredients involved.

Our sense of taste has long been understood to involve a very particular map of the tongue where salty, sweet, sour, and bitter receptors all had their allotted real estate. Not until recently, and with the understanding of a fifth sense, the savory “umami,” did we come to know that taste can be perceived all over the walls of our mouth and encompasses the entire tongue. But taste alone does not bring food and drink alive. We need our sense of smell both when we sniff a fine wine and when we chew a well-prepared steak, to get what it is we call flavor. This might help explain why we swish wine around our mouths after we smell it, or why we close our eyes and inhale the warm steam coming off a perfectly seasoned bowl of soup.

Global spice rubs and sauces can act in much the same manner. They are used first for preservation, as many of the chemical compounds found in ground spices and chili peppers deter bacteria, (or in the olden days, mask what that has already started to expire) and are then used for flavor. Layers upon layers of spices build upon each other for complexity such as earthy flavors from paprika, herbaceousness from oregano, sweetness from cinnamon, or even spiciness from white pepper.

In many ways, Wild Blueberries present a naturally occurring blend of flavor complexity that other products require human intervention to achieve. Wild Blueberries certainly benefit from human hands, of course – but rather than seeking the perfect blend of fruit, it means perfecting the crust for a great pie, a great smoothie, or the grilled venison to pair with Wild Blueberry chutney. Anybody hungry?

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About the Author 

Chef Rebecca Peizer, C.H.E. C.E.C.

Associate Professor of Culinary Arts
Culinary Institute of America at Greystone

Rebecca’s passion for food set her on a path to the Culinary Institute of America where she graduated in 2000. From there, she set off to New York City where she became a private chef. She took her next big step in the culinary world when she moved to California and opened Roux, a restaurant in St. Helena in the heart of the Napa Valley. Roux quickly took off and theSan Francisco Chronicle named it Top 10 Restaurants in the Bay Area 2001. On the heels of that honor, Food & Wine named her Top 10 Sous Chefs in America 2002. Over the course of her career, Rebecca has had the opportunity to work with many great chefs including Jacques Pepin, Martin Yan, Bradly Ogden, Cindy Pawlcyn, and Julia Childs. She has catered events for presidential candidates, Napa Valley winemakers, and prominent artists, and now shares her passion for food and wine with students at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley.

During the 12 summers she spent as a camper, then counselor, in Maine’s Belgrade Lakes region, DeDe Lahman became enthralled by Wild Blueberries. “We picked them wild, ate blueberry ice cream, visited Blueberry Hill (in Rome, Maine) on days off, and just enjoyed all things Wild Blueberry,” she recalls.

So when Lahman and her husband Chef Neil Kleinberg opened the Clinton St. Baking Company and Restaurant in 2001 on New York’s Lower East Side, the first muffin they made was blueberry crumb — “the quintessential morning muffin flavor.”

She insisted they use Wild Blueberries from Maine, “as a homage to my favorite state,” she says. But aboveall, “Wild Blueberries have a very intense flavor for such a small berry.”

Neil’s recipe that followed—Wild Maine Blueberry Pancakes with warm maple butter—has been hailed as New York’s Best Pancakes by some of the industry’s most discriminating tastemakers, and helped put Clinton St. Baking Company on the map as the Big Apple’s Number One breakfast spot. That’s not an easy distinction to earn in a city that is a destination for the world’s top chefs.

Wild Blueberry Pancakes are so popular they’re served all day long. There are more than 800 orders for Wild Blueberry Pancakes on a weekly basis—and Clinton St. regularly attracts crowds from all over the globe who are willing to wait hours in line for the experience.

Widely exalted for their “melt in your mouth goodness,” and being “festooned with enough Wild Blueberries to satisfy a mama bear and her cubs,” New York Magazine twice crowned the pancakes the city’s best, a title The New York Daily News also bestowed. Critics at Travel & Leisure magazine wrote that the Wild Blueberry Pancakes slathered in Maple Butter “make you think you’re still dreaming,” when they included Clinton St. Bakery on its list of New York’s Top 50 restaurants. And the dish has been featured on The Martha Stewart Show and selected for The Food Network’s famous Bobby Flay Throwdown.

Lahman attributes that popularity, in large part, to Wild Blueberries’ unique taste. “There’s clearly a very deep understanding of the flavor and taste,” she says. “People say ours are the best blueberry pancakes in the world, and that title has been earned because of the Wild Maine Blueberries which add a special sweet, yet tart nuance that cultivated blues do not!”

What’s more, the wild blue superfruits blend well with Chef Kleinberg’s signature pancakes —celebrated by critics for being “light and springy,” and “at once delicate and substantial”— which are a twist on a classical French recipe for a soufflé that he began developing years ago, while working as a sous chef.

Wild Blueberries don’t bleed and release too much moisture, Lahman explains, which would make the pancakes wet and soggy. What’s more, because they hold their texture and flavor — even in the oven — they’re particularly great in baked goods.

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Lahman and Kleinberg use fresh Wild Blueberries from Maine when they’re in season, but the rest of the year, they use frozen fresh Wild Blueberries, which are widely available from growers across Maine and eastern Canada. The growers and processors use the IQF (individually quick frozen) method of freezing, which helps ensure that the Wild Blueberries retain their flavor, moisture, and texture. That’s important, as Clinton St. uses roughly 25,000 pounds of Wild Maine Blueberries on an annual basis.

Using Wild Blueberries is part of Clinton St.’s commitment to use only top notch, best-tasting ingredients, just as they use real Grade B, dark amber maple syrup, and award-winning premium milk that’s been certified as the highest quality milk in New York State by Cornell University’s Department of Food Science.

“A hallmark for us at Clinton St. Baking Company is to use the best quality ingredients we can find, and if we can’t find it we make it,” says Lahman. “Since we think that Wild Blueberries taste the best in our pancakes, we use those.”

Lahman and Kleinberg reveal the secrets of Chef Kleinberg’s famous Wild Blueberry pancakes in The Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook: Breakfast, Brunch, & Beyond from New York’s Favorite Neighborhood Restaurant (Little, Brown and Company, 2010), in addition to more than 100 other recipes for their most craved baked goods, omelets, soups, sandwiches, and desserts.

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Editorial consulting by the Culinary Institute of America

What’s in a name? Oftentimes, profit. Why else would companies everywhere pour so much time and treasure into building the brands behind their products? No matter that these products range from gourmet food (Beluga Caviar) to the experiential (Las Vegas, baby!), the endgame is creating a reason to believe – and buy.

In the world of branding, the word “premium” has a unique place and is usually associated with a product that conjures something special and meaningfully different from the alternatives. Premium promises a more luxurious, high-end, and superior-quality experience

In the food world, where experiences are particularly emotional, the promise can include ultra-delicious, specially-grown, hand-crafted, wild, or one-of-a-kind products that deliver a range of benefits – from comfort to indulgence to wellness or sustainability. Those benefits resonate with an extra appeal that can drive traffic, command a higher price, and enhance margin.

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The concept of premium pricing goes well beyond consumer package goods. In Napa Valley, where our Greystone campus is located, there are several levels of quality when it comes to making and buying wine. At the high end are cult wines, those unique, ultra-special wines made by world renowned winemakers, in extremely limited quantities. If you were lucky enough to get into a wine club membership at the exact right time, you just might be able to purchase one of these bottles for hundreds of dollars. There are viticulture laws that govern what the term “estate grown” means, and these laws ensure you are getting not just a true story behind the wine for your wine dollars, but a great tasting product, too. Although the words “reserve” or “select” on a bottle are not backed up by labeling laws, they can command a higher price than the other bottles, and in some cases can be tasted only if you purchase a VIP wine tasting or were fortunate enough to make friends with the tasting room manager.

Label and menu descriptors are especially effective to support premium pricing. In today’s closer-to-crop restaurant world, the word “wild” is especially powerful. Calling out wild mushrooms, ramps, and fiddleheads conjures up images of a forager working with nature to deliver you these flavor-packed goodies. Wild Copper River salmon – even if you are nowhere near Alaska – evokes a sense of place, story, and a narrow window of availability. Better yet, the struggle of a noble fish swimming up a particularly swift-running river promises highly sought-after health and flavor benefits.

Wild blueberries don’t have to swim up a river, but they did have to evolve to survive growing on a glacial barren – and, much like the salmon, deliver health and flavor benefits along with a sense of story and place. Naturally hardy, with deep blue color and intense blueberry taste, wild blueberries grow with a minimum of irrigation, and contain a higher concentration of many phytonutrients as well as more fiber and manganese than their cultivated cousins. They have also learned that there is strength in numbers – meaning that there are diverse varieties in any given field that produce a blend of complex flavors – as opposed to the mono-crops of farmed blueberries.

Wild Blueberries are an authentic premium product that are sought after by consumers. Consumer research has proven that menus or products that call out wild blueberries can command a premium price over products with regular blueberries. Wild Blueberries are a tiny superfruit with intense flavor and twice the number of berries per pound, making it an affordable way to go premium.

The bottom line is that your own brand will reap the benefits of the premium “Wild” halo if you call it out in your recipes, menus, products, or labels. After all, if you use Filet Mignon, you wouldn’t just call it a steak. That would simply be leaving profit on the table.

About the Author 

Chef Rebecca Peizer, C.H.E. C.E.C.

Associate Professor of Culinary Arts
Culinary Institute of America at Greystone

Rebecca’s passion for food set her on a path to the Culinary Institute of America where she graduated in 2000. From there, she set off to New York City where she became a private chef. She took her next big step in the culinary world when she moved to California and opened Roux, a restaurant in St. Helena in the heart of the Napa Valley. Roux quickly took off and theSan Francisco Chronicle named it Top 10 Restaurants in the Bay Area 2001. On the heels of that honor, Food & Wine named her Top 10 Sous Chefs in America 2002. Over the course of her career, Rebecca has had the opportunity to work with many great chefs including Jacques Pepin, Martin Yan, Bradly Ogden, Cindy Pawlcyn, and Julia Childs. She has catered events for presidential candidates, Napa Valley winemakers, and prominent artists, and now shares her passion for food and wine with students at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley.

Recipe to try: Goat Cheese Risotto with Wild Blueberries, Mushrooms, Duck Confit, and Poached Egg

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When Maple Hill Creamery debuted its line of 100% Grass Fed Cream on Top Yogurts in 2010, Wild Blueberries emerged as an obvious choice for the flavor lineup, along with plain, vanilla, maple, lemon, and orange creme varieties.

Having enjoyed the intense flavor of Wild Blueberries fresh from the field and prepared in jams and pies, Maple Hill’s founders knew that the indigenous superfruits would perfectly fit into the company’s commitment to use real, organic ingredients—and avoid processed flavored extracts made with chemicals. Plus, Wild Blueberries contained unique health benefits,

“As we committed early on to eschew using “natural” flavors in our yogurt, we chose Wild Blueberries for their intense blueberry flavor and color,” says Sara Talcott, vice president of marketing and communications for Maple Hill, based in Stuyvesant, New York. “Using Wild Blueberries was a good fit for our artisanally-produced product.”

Indeed, consumers have clamored for Maple Hill’s 100% Grass Fed Wild Blueberry yogurt, and the Wild Blueberry drinkable yogurt, which the company introduced in 2013.

Wild Blueberry is the most popular SKU among its six-ounce, non-plain Cream on Top yogurts, says Talcott. And out of the more than 20 products Maple Hill sells, Wild Blueberry is the fifth-most popular flavor.

Consumers “love the taste and that we don’t add a lot of sugar or “natural” flavors to enhance the real flavor of the berries,” Talcott added.

Organic Valley Goes Wild

Organic Valley, the nation’s largest cooperative of organic farmers, has also determined that Wild Blueberries and Grass-Fed Milk are a winning recipe.

Organic Valley plans to add a Wild Blueberry flavor to its lineup of six-ounce grass milk yogurt cups in September 2016, along with strawberry and organic fair trade vanilla varieties.

“Our consumers are always looking for ingredients that are as close to the way nature intended,” says Nicole Mydy, Brand Innovation Manager for the La Farge, Wisconsin-based cooperative.  “We also found Wild Blueberries to have the flavor profile we were looking for while maintaining a short, simple ingredient statement.”

Knowing that their core customers are always seeking the maximum nutrition out of their food choices, Wild Blueberries well-known antioxidant powers, were also a plus, Mydy adds.

Organic Valley is looking to build on the momentum that its Grassmilk yogurts have gained since the company introduced the product in vanilla and plain flavors in 2015.  The products feature cream-on-top, whole milk yogurt from 100% grass-fed, non-homogenized organic milk and live probiotic cultures.

Health Benefits and Sustainability Drive Sales
Any dairy maker looking to sate consumers’ current cravings would be hard- pressed to think of a better pairing than grass-fed dairy and Wild Blueberries. A roundup of 2016’s hottest food trends by the nation’s leading research firms indicates that demand is swelling for naturally-healthy, minimally-processed, environmentally-sustainable ingredients with the unique health benefits and compelling origin stories that both Wild Blueberries and grass-fed dairy products offer.

Mounting research has shown that  antioxidant-rich Wild Blueberries and the bioactive phytonutrients that give them their deep-blue color may help stave off chronic disease, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other conditions. They also help protect the body against damage from pollution, sunlight, and other stressors that have been linked to chronic disease. Plus, Wild Blueberries are higher in antioxidants, fiber, and disease-fighting nutrients than cultivated varieties.

The popularity of dairy products that are made with milk from grass-fed cows has soared in recent years as word has spread about its nutritional and environmental edge over conventionally made milk that is sourced from cows that eat grains and corn.  In fact, Whole Foods product experts listed the “Graze Craze”  among the top food trends for 2016.

Studies have shown that milk from grass-fed cows has a ratio of Omega-3 Fatty acids that is healthier for humans than milk from conventionally-fed cows.  And farmers  argue that producing grass-fed milk also has less of an environmental impact. Maple Hill Creamery points out that because grass-fed cows eat grass that is already growing on the farm, fewer fossil fuels are required than for conventionally-made milk, where cows eat corn and grain that must be grown, processed and shipped to farms.  When cows consume grass in a rotation on the farm, it also keeps the pastures fertile, healthy, and growing.

8 Health Benefits Wild Blueberries Can Add to Your Products

Americans are hungrier than ever for foods that will help them heal, live longer, and stave off disease, weight gain, and the insults of aging.  In fact, Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability consumers (LOHAS) represent a $290 billion dollar market.

Wild Blueberries—low-calorie fruits that are brimming with flavor, antioxidants, fiber, and disease-fighting nutrients —can help you tap into that fertile market.

Nearly 3 out of 4 LOHAS consumers believe wild foods are healthier and tastier than cultivated varieties, and two thirds say that they are willing to buy more wild foods, and pay more for them, according to a nationwide survey conducted by Portland Marketing Analytics, a Maine-based research firm.

Here are eight compelling health benefits that make Wild Blueberries a valuable addition to your products and recipes:

1. Wild Blueberries are diet-friendly. With just 80 calories per one-cup serving Wild Blueberries are ideal for weight-conscious consumers. And given that Wild Blueberries have 30% less sugar than cultivated varieties—with just 10 grams of sugar per cup— they’ll appeal to those low-carb dieters who are wary of even naturally sweet stuff.  What’s more, Wild Blueberries are a low-glycemic food, scoring 53 on the 100-point Glycemic Index, which ranks foods according to how they impact blood sugar levels (higher scoring foods raise blood sugar more than those with lower scores). 

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2. Wild foods provide unique disease-protecting power.One cup of Wild Blueberries has twice as much iron as cultivated varieties, more than four times as much zinc, twice as much fiber and antioxidants, and eight times as much manganese. “In the centuries that Wild Blueberries have grown and naturally spread on Maine and Canada’s rugged coastlines, they have developed powerful compounds that helped them adapt to environmental stresses and survive,” says Dr. Mary Ann Lila, Ph. D and director of the Plants for Human Health Institute at North Carolina State University.  “When we eat those wild foods, those same natural plant compounds protect us from inflammation and chronic disease,” Lila says.

3. Wild Blueberries are packed with age-proofing antioxidants.Wild Blueberries get their rich blue hue from antioxidants, which help protect the body from free radicals—unstable molecules generated by pollution, sunlight, heavy exercise, and other stressors—which have been linked to cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other conditions. “If you want to keep aging at bay, in terms of your skin, heart, eyesight and brain function, you’re not going to go wrong choosing fruits and vegetables that have antioxidants,” said Kit Broihier, MS, RD, LD, nutrition advisor to the Wild Blueberry Association of North America. “Wild Blueberries are a concentrated source of them.” One cup of Wild Blueberries hasmore antioxidant power than 20 other fruits and vegetables, including cranberries, grapes, and even cultivated blueberries, according to a May 2010 analysis by the USDA.

4. Wild Blueberries can help stave off Alzheimer’s disease. Blueberries improve memory and brain function in older adults with mild cognitive impairment—a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, according toresearch presented in March 2016 to the American Chemical Society. Researchers attribute the benefit to compounds called anthocyanins, which have shown the same effect in animal studies.

5. Wild Blueberries may boost concentration in school-aged kids. A 2015 study showed that Wild Blueberries boost concentration and memory in elementary school-aged children. After consuming 1.75 cups of Wild Blueberries, 7 to 10-year-olds were better able to remember information and tune out distractions.

6. Wild Blueberries lower risk of Type 2 Diabetes.A growing body of research reveals that Wild Blueberries can mitigate some of the symptoms that are characteristic of metabolic syndrome, a condition that can increase the risk of Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease. Wild Blueberries reduced chronic inflammation in animals—an underlying factor of metabolic syndrome. Additional studies showed that Wild Blueberries lowered cholesterol and triglycerides, while maintaining HDL (or good cholesterol) levels.

7. Wild Blueberries boost heart health.According to research, consuming Wild Blueberries daily can help blood vessels function better, supporting circulation and heart health, which may help stave off heart disease. Other studies have shown that consumption of anthocyanins, like the ones in Wild Blueberries, is associated with a lower risk of heart attack among women.

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8. Wild Blueberries may help beat some cancers. New research shows that eating blueberries may have the potential to help stall the growth of a difficult-to-treat form of breast cancer. In animal studies blueberries demonstrated the ability to control tumor growth, decrease metastasis and induce cell death in cases of triple negative breast cancer, (TNBC), a particularly aggressive form of the disease.

Even beyond these eight health benefits, Wild Blueberries add incredible flavor and color to any recipe. “It’s a case where the answer to the question ‘what should I have?’ lines up nicely with what tastes good,” said Broihier.

To learn more about the health benefits of Wild Blueberries, check out the research library of the Wild Blueberry Association of North America.