There’s Blue Gold in Them There Deserts

One of the side effects of the exotic superfruit boom is a rediscovery of our own domestic offerings to the healthful berry heap. Not long ago, I touched (here and there) on the (once again) thriving cranberry industry after a jaunt to the Northeast during harvest time. And the other day, I ran across an interesting piece from The Seattle Times discussing the blueberry “gold rush” underway in the Northwest (where they also harvest a good amount of cranberries … seems like there’s a bit of catty sentiment between the two berry camps, as evidenced a bit in the abovementioned ST piece… meow…).

Yes, it’s a good time to be an antioxidant-rich berry—no hidden nuances there—but what I found most interesting in the article is the old 49er prospector attitude about expanding blueberry production into the desertlike plateaus of Eastern Washington… I’m sure the blueberry folks have done their homework, but it’s a delicate line between supply and demand that will fetch growers and processors top dollar. And on the quality front, I’d be interested in hearing how berries grown in more-arid climates compare to those cropped in ideal conditions (although in this booming berry market, it’s quite possible that there’s room for a wide range of berries for various needs—from fresh to purée to frozen, etc.).

Aside: Although my parents thankfully bred unabashed omnivore tendencies into me as a young child, two fruits stick out in my earliest childhood memories: my nearly insatiable love of bananas (temporarily quelled by a sometimes logically divergent neighbor lady sick of seeing her bananas disappear, so she game me a case of the fruit for my birthday … ugh … too many bananas…) and the blueberries we’d pick in Michigan every summer (and still do), filling the cooler full at the farm and then the subsequent weeks of berry-rich cobblers, coffee cakes, muffins, pancakes … mmm…. And then we’d freeze the rest and enjoy them for months later.

All in the name of health, of course.