Essays on contemporary and historic Montana http :// thewestoldandnew . wordpress . com
Montana Fare
Huckleberry & Gourmet Mushroom Hunting
Huckleberry is a name used in North America for several plants in the family Ericaceae . It is the state fruit of Idaho . The name ' huckleberry ' is a North American corruption of the English dialectal name variously ' hurtleberry ' or ' whortleberry ' for the bilberry . In North America the name was applied to a confusing range of different plants all bearing small , a The berries are small and round , about the size of a commercially grown blueberry , but sometimes bigger depending on rain conditions in the early spring . The berries range in color from a purple red , to a dark purple and deep blues . They are tart in taste and grow on low shrubs on the sides of mountains . The greatest hazard associated with picking huckleberries is the chance of sharing a plot with a grizzly bear . They are territorial when it comes to sharing their berries .
Huckleberries in archaic American English slang were used as a way of referring to something small , in an affectionate way . The phrase " a huckleberry over my persimmon " was used to mean " a bit beyond my abilities ". " I ' m your huckleberry " is a way of saying that one is just the right person for a given job .
In Western Montana huckleberries are big business . A gallon of the beautiful berries can bring forty-dollars . Often folks buy them from roadside vendors and throw then into the freezer for winter enjoyment . In 1974 I picked and sold huckleberries in the Yaak , located in northwestern Montana near Idaho and Canada . While living in the Yaak , a local woman gave me a recipe for a huckleberry pie which I still use to this day . I particularly like this recipe because it mixes fresh and cooked berries . Wendy ' s Huckleberry Pie Recipe 2 cups fresh huckleberries , cleaned and washed . 2 cups huckleberries , cleaned and washed , and in the pot with a little water . Add a cup of sugar and cook them for ten minutes or less , add 2 tbsp of cornstarch and thicken . Pull from the stove . When cool add the 2 cups of fresh huckleberries , and then pour it into a baked pie shell . Top with whip cream !
While living in the Yaak , I was also introduced to morchella , a genus of edible mushrooms which are distinct for their honeycomb appearance in the upper portion is composed of a network of ridges with pits between them . The ascocarps are prized by gourmet cooks , particularly for French cuisine . Commercially morels are another valuable wild crafting item . Whether sold at road side markets or dried and sold over the internet , these are very popular everywhere , most folks go out and seek their own supply every year . Searching for morels is fun because it means you take a walk in the woods .
Merkels or miracles , as morels have been called are based on a story of how a mountain family was saved from starvation by eating them in Kentucky . In parts of West Virginia , they are known as " molly moochers ." Other common names for morels include sponge mushroom . Genus Morchella is derived from morchel , an old German word for mushroom , while morel itself is derived from the Latin maurus meaning brown .
The fruit bodies of the Morchella exhibit variations in shape , color and size ; this has contributed to uncertainties regarding taxonomy . Discriminating between the various species is complicated by uncertainty regarding which species are truly biologically distinct . Some authors suggest that the genus only contains as few as 3 to 6 species , while others place up to 50 species in the genus . Mushroom hunters refer to them by their color ( e . g ., gray , yellow , black ) as the species are very similar in appearance and vary considerably within species and age of individual . The best known morels are the " yellow morel " the " white morel " and the " black morel ."
Western Gal Speak-Life in Montana
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