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Singing the Blues—Blueberries

© Carey Draeger

Blueberries are one of the most popular berries in the United States. Once called "star berries" for the 5-point star-shaped calyx at the top of each berry, blueberries have been around for over 13,000 years. Native Americans revered this tasty berry long before European explorers reached North American shores. One legend describes a great famine and notes that the Great Spirit sent starving children the star berry to eat.

Native Americans ate blueberries off the bush and used different techniques to preserve blueberries for the winter months: one of the most popular was to sun dry them and then add them to soups, stews and meat, or crush them into a powder and rub it on meat.Blueberries were also used in a dish called sautauthig (pronounced saw-taw-teeg), a type of cornmeal-mush. The Pilgrims were introduced to sautauthig by their Native American hosts and it may have been served at the first Thanksgiving. During their exploration of the Louisiana Purchase (1804-06), Merriweather Lewis and William Clark discovered that Indians in the Northwest Territory smoked wild blueberries to preserve them for the winter. One of the first meals they shared with the Indians was venison with wild blueberries pounded into it and then smoked and dried.

Blueberries were also used for medicinal purposes. Shamans and wise women brewed the roots of the blueberry bush into a tea that helped relax women giving birth. The leaves were steeped to create a drink that purified blood. Tribal healers used blueberry juice and syrup to quiet coughs (think about that the next time you cover your pancakes with blueberry syrup). Modern-day research discovered that blueberries actually help prevent or treat diseases. In addition to being an excellent source of dietary fiber (one serving provides 14 percent of the daily requirement), blueberries have a high level of antioxidants, antibacterial qualities that may relieve illnesses such as diarrhea, folic acid, vitamins A and C and anthocyanosides, a natural substance that is supposedly kills the E. coli bacteria. In the January/February 1999 issue of Eating Well, blueberries were named "Fruit of the Year" because of their health and nutritional benefits (try this savory recipe for chicken breasts with a blueberry sauce).

The cultivated blueberry is a relatively new product. In the early 1900s Elizabeth White and Frederick Colville, a New Jersey botanist, began to cross different blueberry varieties. They wanted to develop blueberry bushes that would easily grow in home gardens and farms (Virtual Garden). Today, over 200 million pounds of blueberries are grown in North America, 66 percent of them in Michigan and New Jersey. Blueberry season begins in July, which is also National Blueberry Month. Why not celebrate the blueberry with a piece of pie, cobbler or even some blueberry upsidedown cake?