The Delicious Origins of the Domesticated Blueberry (2016) | Hacker News Reader

The Delicious Origins of the Domesticated Blueberry (2016)

daily.jstor.org

42 pointsnkurz29 comments

Every time blueberries are mentioned in a US context, it's just as jarring! It's a rather simple/common thing, and yet it is not the same all over the world.

Over here in northern Europe (Sweden), what we would call a blueberry is what you would call a bilberry [1], and what you would call a blueberry is referred to as an American blueberry (or maybe a cultivated blueberry).

They're all awesome of course, and not having to bend the fsck down to pick the things is a nice feature of the American ones.

Edit: weirdly enough the Wikipedia page for the bilberry doesn't even link to the Swedish page for the same berry [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilberry

[2]: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A5b%C3%A4r

> Over here in northern Europe (Sweden), what we would call a blueberry is what you would call a bilberry

Thanks for pointing out the distinction. In my home country of Romania we also tend to think of bilberries when we're talking about this kind of berry. Traditionally they grow wild, mostly in mountainous areas - they are very flavorful and not so sweet.

Until just now I actually assumed "supermarket" blueberries were just a crappier version of the real thing :)) Good to know they're two distinct plants altogether.

>> crappier version of the real thing

That's exactly what I think about American blueberries as well. Got used to "bilberries" in Poland.

The blueberry you know is much better: I moved to Norway, tried the berries growing in the forest, and now the fresh supermarket berries always disappoint me. Hopefully, I'll to pick enough to make a blueberry liqueur this summer.

-Presumably you are familiar with the Finnish Mustikka liqueur already?

Lovely with a little lime and ice, but I agree - making your own is something else!

-Presumably you are familiar with the Finnish Mustikka liqueur already?

Yes, I have some in the liquor globe right now, alongside some cloudberry!

And you are correct - I find making liqueur quite fun. Right now, I have plum leftover from last year and want to make some spruce tip liqueur if I can catch the trees at the right time.

In the US these are usually considered wild blueberries, and the best ones of course come from Maine. The wild Maine blueberries[0] are a Vaccinium that grow on scrubby bushes low to the ground that can be hand-picked or harvested from blueberry barrens[1] with special rakes. Much better than the big supermarket blueberries in terms of flavor and pie-making ability. I'm curious to try some of the Swedish variety to see how they compare!

[0] - https://extension.umaine.edu/blueberries/home/public-2/

[1] - example blueberry barren: https://downeast.com/images/blueberry-barrens-5/

Two thumbs up for Maine blueberries! I made my summer money from 5 years old through college raking them. Piece work, around $2.50 per 5 gallon bucket.

It should be noted that American wild blueberries (low bush blueberries) are a different species than bilberries. You can sometimes find people selling wild blueberry jam.

In Austria we call them Heidelbeeren. Some call them Blaubeeren which is a 1:1 translation to blueberry. TIL that the English name for them is bilberry.

For those who only now blueberries, bilberries are more tasteful, smaller and are hard to grow in cultivation yet easily cover the forest floor when humidity and dabbled shade conditions are favorable.

It looks like that's because the en. version got fragmented into two articles, only the second of which is linked with the sv.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilberry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccinium_myrtillus

fr. and it. are also split this way.

That's because "bilberry" is somewhat ambiguous, there are other related but distinct berries like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccinium_uliginosum.

Bilberry is ~the only drug found to reduce myopia progression

Where can I read more about this

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6296196/

Where I live we can go to the grocers and get huge tasteless waxen "domestic" highbush blueberries wrapped in cellophane, or we can go into our bush and pick a few tiny lowbush "wild" blueberries and enjoy the massive flavour. Same goes for strawberries. Orders of magnitude more flavour but tinier and not long-lasting.

It's great that a lot of work went into breeding and hybridizing these fruits so they ship well so city dwellers can buy them, and they look great so you're enticed to pick up packages of them at the supermarket, but they're really a shadow of their origins. Once you've tried the original, it's hard to go back.

I say this as someone with a few dozen highbush blueberry (and domestic strawberry) plants in my garden because finding and picking the wild kind is work.

I've never seen blueberries growing over here in the UK, but you are absolutely right about strawberries. The best are the tiny alpine varieties with fruit smaller than a pinky nail. I would rather have three of those gems than a punnet of greenhouse giants

I’m a big fan of frozen blueberries. They last much longer, you don’t need to wash or examine them, and if you mix them in plain (sugar free) yoghurt you’ve got almost instant blueberry fro yo.

Growing up I was convinced the Scandinavian blueberries where the standard. Then I found that in fact it's not a blueberry but instead bilberry. However still like them better.

Yes! Freshly gathered before breakfast, they're one of the joys of Swedish summer. OK, they're not as convenient to cultivate at scale as the American blueberry, but they easily win on taste!

I like them both very much. American blueberry is (when ripe) very sweet, like a candy almost. Bilberry (=blueberry to me) is very flavourful. Sometimes I want one, sometimes the other.

Bilberries really taste nice in milk for instance, or for flavouring icecream.

American blueberries don't add much to icecream, they sort of disappear in the general sweetness, but taste great on their own.

If you've ever seen bilberries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilberry growing in the wild then you'll know that they grow in "poor" acidic soils. Often alongside other similar acid loving plants like heather and rhododendrons. It would not have been much of a "discovery" to realise that need an acidic soil but maybe more of a discovery that they grow better when aided by fungi.

Should do this for Huckleberrys, they are even better tasting than Blueberries..

My wife picked and made Huckleberry jam one year. Threw the pressings (seeds and stems) into the compost heap.

Next spring - massive patch of Huckleberry vines! around the compost heap.

I found them to be mild not strong in flavor. To each their own.

I grew up in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Blueberries are a big part of living there. They grow wild all over the area, and there are always pickers scrambling around the rocks...free for all! Everyone seems to have "their spot" for best picking. I can say, for sure, that the small, intensely coloured berries I grew up with are far better than the monsters you find in the supermarkets.

Here is link to a .pdf that talks bout the particulars of blueberries in Sudbury Credit: Joe D. Shorthouse is Professor Emeritus in Department of Biology at Laurentian University

https://www.blueberryfestival.ca/Blueberries%20-%20Star%20St...

Sudbury is quite amazing: if not for one 'little' accidental impact that whole city would be 1/100th the size it is.

I think 1/100th is generous!

I’m lucky to live surrounded by Vaccinium angustifolium, aka wild low sweets.

Last year I picked 20lbs and also bought 40lbs of wild Vaccinium myrtilloides, aka sour tops.

My chest freezer was a quarter full of blueberries and I’m on my last 2lbs this week.

A bowl of frozen blueberries with milk is a great breakfast, and of course blueberry pancakes, muffins, and crumble!

Mosquitoes pollinate blueberries in Alaska, according to a tour guide on a trip there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com