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.          

Red and Purple; August in Southern Idaho
 #Soda Fire, #Kokanee, # Elderberry

The glowing red and orange of the Soda Fire reflecting off the surface of sleepy, gentle Lake Lowell made my stomach turn and bile rise. The rolling hills surrounding the lake obstructed my view. Needing to see more, I Instructed my husband to get me closer and we drove on. As the entire fire came into view I gasped and found myself shivering uncontrollably.  The heat coming off the flames could not warm me. The thick, choking smoke added to my tears. Sitting in the cab of our truck, in relative safety, sobbing in horror, I watched the enormous red millipede march over the landscape, devouring the rangeland. Small fire tornadoes sprang to life greedily gobbling up sagebrush and Russian Olive trees. The fire’s roaring, moaning, hissing, popping and sighing all rolled into one wicked, deafening voice. So many beloved places—Givens Hot Springs, the Rats Nest and Hard Trigger areas, Silver City, Reynolds and Wilson Creek drainages—all lay in the path of this voracious beast.

Stoddard Mansion, Silver City

  

Silver City Church

August in southern Idaho is red and purple.  Red fills the minds of Idahoans with dread; August is fire season.  Fire, for a Westerner, is synonymous with danger and destruction. Just the word conjures up images of fire tornadoes and blackened soil. Fire is a reality of Western life. It comes and goes every season.  Fire is both death and birth; immediately following a fire the land looks dead but soon the rain brings new shoots of green and the landscape is reborn.

Over the years, I've watched fire greedily devour many places I love the Owyhees, Sun Valley and Ketchum, Pine and Featherville, Crouch and Garden Valley, McCall and Riggins. The list is too long to continue.  Most years, all I can do is watch the television screen in dismay as the fires are usually far from my home in the Treasure Valley.

This fire season struck me much harder than those before. When the Soda Fire started near the Idaho/Oregon border I wasn't too concerned. Small range fires are fairly common and Owyhee County is vast. However, when the fire ballooned from 10,000 acres to 200,000 acres in a day in a part of Idaho that is my backyard—my children were figuratively baptized in the waters of the Snake River; my husband and I hunt the Owyhees every year for deer; my husband’s family ranched the area since the 1880s; I’ve spent more than a decade researching an historical Owyhee county figure; blurry images of the Owyhees are some of my earliest childhood memories−my view of fire changed drastically.

When fire threatens a place you call home it becomes monstrous. Like the notoriously maligned wolf, fire is suddenly imbued with evil intent and murderous ways. This wicked, viscous thing was destroying my home, my backyard, my Owyhees.   Every hair on my body stood on end.  Grabbing my daughter, husband and a dear friend and we headed out to confront the beast and witness the devastation.

Every hour and passing day brought horrific updates—240,000 acres, 260,000 acres and evacuations, 7 miles from Silver City, Soda Fire the largest fire in the lower 48. The fire consumed me too. I could not tear myself away from the screen. I could not sleep. I had no appetite.  When I closed my eyes at night that glowing red millipede chased me.

Soda Fire from Pump Road, 2015

As of this week the Soda Fire is out. So much of the landscape I love is charred. There were no human fatalities. Several ranches lost cattle. Thirty wild horses trapped behind barbed wire died and others had to be euthanized.  Those losses are distressing but it will take years for the high desert to recover, years. The ranchers and sage grouse, antelope, mule deer and other wildlife that depend on the rangeland will suffer right along with the landscape until it is healed.

As the fire wound down, the sky filled with gray smoke, and I found myself exhausted.  My constant worry had taken a physical toll and my thoughts turned to another kind of red−spawning Kokanee.  Kokanee run every August.  I hoped at Anderson Ranch Reservoir, where the desert kisses the mountains, the sky would be clearer and I could finally leave the fire behind. 

We arrived late on a Friday night and set up our camp at Fall Creek Resort—a lovely backcountry destination with a small motel, a restaurant and bar, a marina and a campground on the banks of Anderson Ranch Reservoir.  We woke in the morning, for the first time in two weeks, to a sun that did not look like a slice of pink grapefruit and a brilliantly blue sky. We ate quickly and then headed for the creek. My daughter ran full tilt, her sun-tanned arms and legs pumping in unison. Below the black volcanic rock the creek runs through, in the cool transparent, water dozens of fire-red Kokanee struggled against the current. My daughter squealed in delight. The fish rolled and boiled and occasionally leaped, flashing red above the blue. Fascinated by the bright color, she rock-hopped to the center of the creek and attempted to touch the fish, her arm submerged up to her shoulder in the cold water. My husband threw fishing line after line trying to entice a bite.  I chose a nearby rock and settled in to watch their fun and take in my surroundings.

Spawning Kokanee

As the day wore on the smoke slowly rolled back in. Soon, the sky was once again flannel gray. The horizon was limited to only those mountains surrounding the reservoir that were mostly green having escaped the fire the summer before.  We moved lazily upstream, fishing along the way.

 In a mass of lush green plants crowding the creek, I found the spiny, glossy leaves and purple berries of the Tall Oregon grape. The plant grew at the base of a burned out Ponderosa pine, was no more than four inches tall, and had produced six grapes.  I let the little grapes be so that it might seed for next year.  The creek, I discovered, was also thick with elderberry bushes so heavy with clusters of purple, juicy berries that their branches hung all the way to the ground.  I snapped off clusters and deposited them in a grocery sack and wondered what a mix of elderberries and huckleberries would taste like in a batch of jelly. I'd gathered my huckleberries earlier in the month and stored them in the freezer.  The thought of the two flavors mingling together excited me and I couldn't wait to get home and give it a try.

Elderberry

Tall Oregon Grape

Fall Creek, 2015

 Rounding a bend in the creek, we came upon a favored fishing hole, a small waterfall tumbling into a large blue pool. Red Kokanee assembled at the base of the falls, ready to leap into the white waters and continue their efforts to reach the spawning grounds.  It had been years since we'd visited the spot and I marveled at the changes those years brought. My husband continued his fishing. My daughter caught a toad and spent the afternoon deep in conversation with the amphibian.  I sat next to the rushing water, listening to its prattle, while snapping photos.

                          

 We spent two days fishing Anderson Ranch and the nearby creeks. It was a lovely respite, Anderson Ranch and Fall Creek always are. We came home renewed, with bags full of elderberries and purple fingertips. 

 August is a strange month in Idaho. The fires are devastating but the Kokanee and the berries are life affirming—watching a Kokanee struggle upstream to spawn and start new life is amazing and wild berries taste like summer on the tongue.  August marks the end of summer and the beginning of fall—hot and cool, death and birth−red and purple represent the month well. 

Fall Creek, 2006

For more information about Fall Creek Resort please visit http://fallcreekresortandmarina.com/