Tyttebaer picking

I’ve been picking quite a lot of berries lately. Mainly tyttebaer and whatever blueberries which are left out there in the wilderness.

Tyttebaer season is here and apparently it’s a very popular berry which people like to pick. Some parts of the island are especially popular picking spots coz we’ve seen cars on many occasions just parked on the side of the road and people up on the slopes picking berries. But lucky for us, we’ve got a whole mountain to ourselves. So that’s virgin unpicked land ok! Once again. Tyttebaer goldmine is by the ******** rock behind the ********.

Tyttebaer are little red berries which compared to blueberries are a little more firm. It has a sour after taste and can be used both in uncooked (eaten on its own, or made to jam or crème) or cooked form (this one is fantastic when eaten with meats). It’s Unni’s favourite-est berry. And I too have grown to like it. Must be coz of it’s sour taste.

The other day when bcc stayed over, both of us went berry picking at the secret location. Coz it’s a little colder now, it means that berry picking outfits gotta be more heavy duty. So bring out the Goretex wind/waterproof pants and jackets, thermals and woolen socks. To think that back in August I was actually picking berries with a t-shirt!


Bcc and I went berry picking twice. First day both of us picked tyttebaer.


When we realized that there were still blueberries out there, the second day, bcc went for the tyttebaer and I went for the blueberry. Which I soon found out was extremely limited in supply. And it didn’t help that bcc was picking the plump-est blueberries and eating them on the spot instead of putting them into my bucket (coz she says that the biggest berries deserved to be eaten on the spot. Ah, whatever).

Bcc hand picks her berries and uses the berry picker minimally. Coz like that it ensures that her berries are in perfect shape and not squashed… berry diva or what man?!


I on the other hand mostly use the berry-picker, coz it’s much easier and doesn’t leave your hands all blue. Here’s how it works.

(select desired berries to kill)

(run the teeth of the berry picker through the base of the berry plant)

(gently pull upwards)
(result: berries in berry picker, )

(and a naked berry plant)

Berry sorting saw bcc being defeated by a plastic bag. Coz she couldn’t find the opening and was standing there closely examining the plastic bag trying to get it to open. Of course I come along and open it with relative ease. HA!

trying

trying again...

finally!

That evening, Unni starts to make tyttebaer jam. She saves the hand picked ones for making trollcreme. And gets her 5kg of store bought tyttebaer into the mixer to start the jam making process.

You can tell that jam making is serious business when Unni comes back from the store with 10kg of sugar. Don’t ask me how much of it went into the jam. I don’t know and don’t really wanna know anyway.

Like making strawberry jam, take the berries, add in the sugar and start the whisking. Whisking is done only when the sugar is fully dissolved into the jam. Which means no crunchy texture from undissolved sugar crystals. In between, add in a dash of vanilla sugar to counter the sourness of the tyttebaer and of course for better taste.



When it’s done, put it in smaller containers and straight into the freezer. Take out to defrost only when required to ensure that tyttebaer is consumed fresh.


That’s only part of the tyttebaer jam she made. It's thick, it's creamy, sweet with a twang of sourness. Best of all, it's packed full of berries, whole berries that is. So each time you take a bite, you've got squirts of berry goodness exploding in your mouth! In total, Unni has 16 of those containers stashed away in the deep freeze. Not counting the other packets of fresh untouched tyttebaer she has sitting in the there as well. Not a lot considering it’s gotta last till the next tyttebaer season swings by in sept 2007.

So far we've been though 2 containers already. I'm loving tyttebaer more and it's fast replacing blueberry as my 'GOLD'.