Huckleberries!

'Tis huckleberry season once again!

Though still a little early for many locations, one can certainly find some ripe huckleberries in the mountains in northern Pend Oreille County. It's looking to be a better year than last year's disappointing dearth. (Though we still need some more rain if the current green ones are to plump up. Some ripe ones have even dried and shriveled up on the bush. Perhaps the Forest Service can spare a firefighting plane to drop water onto the huckleberry patches. No berries is tantamount to an emergency!) We went up on Huckleberry Mountain today and found a few isolated patches with modest samplings, but nothing too outstanding. My mom has attempted to look further north in the county and found mostly green ones still. So, maybe it's a bit premature to celebrate...

But I have one spot where I have found bunches of huge thumbnail-sized berries and have so far picked about three-quarters of a gallon. Time is my only hinderance.

Where is this place, you ask? Tsk-tsk, just as a fisherman does not reveal his secret spot, neither does the berry-picker. There is a clandestined level of activity in summer (mostly legit, I think), the underground huckleberry movement: a venturing of locals into the hills to fill their coffee cans and stain their hands purple. A little sampling is permitted, too.

The huckleberry is the gourmet food to emerge from our natural spaces. It is much like France with its truffles and truffle-hunters, each with his or her own "secret spot" and local lore about what makes for good growing conditions. As in France, we have had great difficulty attempting to domesticate this natural bounty and there has been great public outcry against attempts to regulate its harvest. The berries fetch high prices (if you can bear to part with them) and there is always controversy about the way they are sometimes collected (using a "rake" is not welcome in these mountains!). Can you imagine a more decadent summer treat than the sweet, tartness of huckleberry pie, each juicy berry bursting in your mouth as the light crust flakes? You can actually taste the difference between huckleberries picked in different locations - this one is more sugary, this one is very tart. All is the result of different soils, minerals, rainfall, sunlight, and temperature - such subtlety. Let me be the first to say it: Huckleberries have their own terroir. Peter Mayle, eat your heart out; give me huckleberries before truffles, I say.

Never mind what Benjamin Franklin said about beer and God. Huckleberries are proof He loves us and wants us to be happy. And the nonpresence of poison ivy in the berry patches is perhaps the guiding hand of providence.

Mmmmm, huckleberries...

I leave you with a question: Does anyone else bristle when nonlocals refer to huckleberries they've found as blueberries? They're not the same thing!