Elderberries!

#Elderberries 

Whenever I tell folks I am off to pick some berries, the berry that pops into their mind is the huckleberry. The huckleberry is renowned in the West for its sweet deliciousness. However there is another purple berry in the Idaho forests that gets little attention, the elderberry. The elderberry is in my opinion an often overlooked and underappreciated fruit. It should not be viewed as the huckleberry’s poor cousin but rather celebrated for all that it is. The elderberry has a lot to offer.

 The Elderberry is a common to the Western United states, but it is a little known and under-utilized bush.  It grows in moist but not swampy areas of the forest and valleys near creeks, riverbanks, and roads.

The elderberry is a small bush six to twenty feet in height.  It lacks a central trunk.  Rather, several limbs octopus skyward in search of sunlight, then arch gracefully at the ends, resulting in an umbrella shaped bush.  The larger limbs are brittle and a grayish/brown color.  The centers of the branches and limbs are pith filled—pith is the soft tissue in the center of twigs and branches that is responsible for moving and storing nutrients throughout the plant. In new growth the pith will be white or creamy.In older growth the pith turns gray or brown or may disintegrate leaving the wood hollow. This easily hollowed wood is how the plant earned its genus name of Sambucus, from the Greek word sambuke, a wind instrument made from the wood of the alder.

These brittle, grayish branches support the grass-green, finely saw-toothed, elongated and inverted tear drop leaves. These long slender leaves are pinnately compound leaves—the leaves are arranged like a feather with the twig being the spine and the leaves sprouting evenly on either side. The lance-shaped leaflets are also pinnate; a central spine with evenly spaced veins. The lush kelly-green leaves of the blue elderberry are easily visible from great distances set against the faded yellow grasses and hillsides of Idaho in fall. 

The Elderberry is a show stopper in spring sporting creamy-white flower clusters the size of grape bunches.  By fall the blossoms have grown into heavy, clumps of deep blue berries covered in a thin white film.  This deep blue covered with a white film gives the blue elderberry its species name, cerulean, from the Latin caeruleus meaning “sky blue.”

Elderberries are classified as a drupe--a fruit consisting of a thin skin, a succulent meaty layer and a stone or woody seed in the center.  The meat is sweet and reminiscent of a blueberry but meager, and the seed is rather large for a berry the size of a pencil eraser. But, the enormous elderberry bunches, that can often weigh nearly a half a pound each, makes gathering the fruit rather easy.  One large tree can easily yield ten pounds of berries.

Historically, Native Americans have used the elderberry in making purple and green dyes, as a medicine to treat colds, sore throats, fevers, sprains, bruises, arthritis and toothaches, and the hollowed wood was fashioned into flutes.  However, there is now scientific evidence that this fruit boosts the immune system—it is being used experimentally to treat AIDS and cancer patients—bioflavonoids and certain proteins in the fruit destroy a viruses ability to 
infect cells—elderberries were used to treat a flu epidemic in Panama in 1955. However, modern 
foragers most often use the elderberry for jelly, syrups and juice. Sugared and cooked elderberries 
taste like a cross between a Concord grape and blueberries.

The simplified name of the elderberry—sky-blue wind instrument tree—has a certain poetic ring to it.  There is a beauty in that name. However, if a name were given that properly reflected this magnificent tree it would need to be much longer—Ancient, sky blue, dye maker, food provider, dentist, doctor,flutemaker—and not nearly as aesthetically pleasing.      

  Elderberry Jelly Recipe and Syrup

3 cups prepared juice (or 3 lb. fully ripe elderberries)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 box SURE-JELL Fruit Pectin
1/2 tsp. butter or margarine
4-1/2 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl
1/2 cup of honey



Prepare your jars or other storage container—I often make freezer jelly rather than traditional canning methods but the recipe stays the same.

Carefully remove all the stems from the berries. Rinse the berries well. Pour berries into a large sauce pan and crush thoroughly; a potato masher works wonderfully though I run my berries through a juicer which separates the seeds and skins out. Cook over medium heat until the berry juices start to flow. Once your berries are thoroughly crushed and juicy, drain the mixture through a few layers of cheesecloth draped over a strainer or colander with a pan underneath to catch the juice. Let it drain for a few minutes. Squeeze as much juice as you can from the cheesecloth. This should leave you with between three and five cups of juice. Return the juice to the saucepot and stove. Add in lemon juice, sugar, honey. Bring to a full rolling boil. Stir constantly for about five minutes. I know my syrup is done when it clings to my stirring spoon. Measure out the hot mixture and remove enough of the juice mix to leave just three cups in the saucepan. This extra, the juice you remove from the saucepan, is your syrup. Return the mixture to the stove and bring to a rolling boil. Add pectin and stir for a full minute. Pour this into your prepared storage containers.

The syrup will last in the fridge for about 3 weeks. The jelly, if frozen, will last up to a year. Once refrigerated it should be used within a month.

Possible Jelly/Syrup Alterations

Because elderberries are so prolific and easy to gather, I’ve experimented. An equal mix of blackberries and elderberries makes a delightful jelly. If for some reason you run short of berries or juice, grape juice works well to fill the gap, though apple juice will also do in a pinch.