Red, White & Blue

Memorial Day is near when the municipal workers put up fresh American flags on the power poles down the main drag of town and on the road leading to the local cemetery with departed veterans going back as far as the Revolutionary War. On Monday I’ll hear the band and rifle salute after the parade that ends with a memorial service. The flags will fly until after Veterans Day in November when they will be retired by the local American Legion and properly disposed of in ceremony. These are the rituals that will take place in many small towns throughout the country to honor service members who have fallen in the line of duty or passed on.

But for others, our patriotic rituals are more food focused as we recognize the three-day weekend for what it’s become—the kick-off of summer. This is the warm-up for Father’s Day and July Fourth. We’ll test out our grills to make sure they’re in good working order. Whoops! Looks like the bottom of the smoker has completely rusted out over the winter. One of the big box stores will surely have one on sale.

It’s not only the red, white, and blue on the flags, but of the colors of the fruits showing up at the market that alert me to impending summer. The strawberries have been around for a few weeks, but last week the first of the blueberries arrived.

Although blueberries are native to North America, the high-bush commercial varieties were introduced in 1930 from Europe. Currently, the United States produces 40% of the world's blueberry harvest with nearly 300,000 tonnes annually, with Peru and Canada following in commercial production.

While blueberries are relatively resistant to pests and diseases, commercial producers must take precautions to prevent crops from being raided by birds by using long rows of netting that gets pushed back like shower curtains during harvesting.

Perfect for snacking and easily frozen for storage, blueberries are perfect for popping directly into your mouth. They make fantastic pies, jellies, and jams. Years ago at one of my annual picnics a fellow farmer and market vendor who had a sheep milk dairy and a blueberry patch made homemade sheep milk blueberry ice cream and it was one of the top five phenomenal foods I’ve eaten in my life thus far.  Pairing well with dairy, blueberries are perfect to add to shakes and smoothies both fresh and frozen.

For those brave culinary souls who want to add a bit of sweet to their savory, blueberries pair well with rosemary and can be mashed up and mopped on to a chunk of meat on the grill to add an acidic sweetness. For the bougie, there’s dropping a few berries into a glass of cheap chardonnay to add an air of sophistication.

I’m a purist and usually eat them right out of the container. That’s why I place them at the very back of the van for the drive home. But for the first batch of the season and to go along with the unfurling of my own flag, I rustled up my own culinary red, white, and blue since my chances of a fancy Sunday Brunch are pretty much zero. I’ll stick to my cooking since I know who grew my berries.