Vignette from a Day Off, Part I

Blueberries

The grey morning mist lifted off the hills as we climbed out of our car, picked up our yellow buckets with the quarts marked on them, and descended into the forest of blueberry bushes. We already had eight quarts from last week; but the picking is good, and we've got a chest freezer and dehydrator. Not to mention the fact that from the farm they're only one dollar and sixty cents a quart.

Blueberry picking is a sensual art. The rotund pockets of juice roll between the fingers as you gently tug the fruit from its tender stem. But not every berry that's blue is ready to be plucked. The artisan picker twirls the berry over to expose the bashful underside: if there is red or green, don't pick it! Only the berries which have turned blue all the way to the stem should be harvested; in them alone has the tartness of adolescence fled and the sweetness of maturity filled the skin.

Only a supreme act of will--and over time, discipline--keeps the picker from yanking off every berry that looks ready from the side. There are some, of course, that verily burst on the branch, clearly asking to be saved from the fate of birds or rot. They swell with pride, declaring their saccharine load with a curvature that is almost feminine, at once seductive and genuine. The practiced eye can take these without thinking, only knowing, and place them in the bucket of blue, imagining the velvet violet flavour.

But for most berries a new sight is required. One needs to learn how to see. For to pick a quart of blueberries, then look down into the bucket and see patches of red, of green--even of white!--is an all-too-common occurrence for the beginner. (I should know.) The berry that looks the perfect indigo on the bush may blush its embarrassment when couched in the basket next to her more mature cousins. Nay, one needs to see the imperfect colour of a young blueberry before he is plucked, to spot the burgundy red under the thin veil of pale that covers the flesh of all berries. One needs to turn the berry between gentle fingertips, to cast a discreet glance over the hidden flesh of the under-fruit and, if the colour belies a youth too young to fulfill its culinary purpose, to wait. There will be other berries; there will be other harvesters.

And the reward for good vision is sweet and beautiful. My yogurt will know it in the summer; my oatmeal shall know it in the winter; for we have enough to last us until our fingers probe the heavy limbs again next year.

~emrys