Bláber - blueberries

Blaber

The more I get involved with Icelandic cuisine and browse through cookbooks and recipes, the more often I come across it: the blueberry.

I always come across blueberries in very different environments, both as blueberry jelly, as blueberry skyr ice cream or as blueberry cake, but also in various meat and fish dishes or as “Bláberjasultu”, a kind of blueberry chutney, a classic side dish for various main dishes.

Onions with blueberries, rosemary and lemon juice - here as a basis for the salmon dish

Breakfast sandwiches - once with fish paste, once with blueberry jam

Even when we went out to eat in Iceland, I still meet them again and again, the blueberry, for example here on the dessert in the Edda Hotel in Laugarvatn:

Dessert at the Edda Hotel: chocolate cake with ice cream and blueberries

In Icelandic, the berry is called “bláber”, literally “blauber”.

I have now learned that the blueberry (Latin: Vaccinium) is the same as the blueberry and belongs to the heather family. It grows in species- and nutrient-poor regions (such as the heathlands and the Icelandic highlands), is deeply rooted in the earth so that storms do not affect it much, and covered with snow it also survives deep frosts well or even when the plant is completely dead If it freezes, the rootstock will sprout again next spring.

The blueberry also has the great advantage that it can usually be harvested from July onwards, not just from the end of August, like other berries in Iceland - which makes it particularly popular with people and animals (also as a source of vitamins in a rather barren area). makes popular.

Blueberries grow on small bushes that are usually between 10 and 60 cm high and in autumn the leaves change color and fall off. The bushes reach an age of up to 30 years, but a single bush is enough to cover a heath area of ​​several 1,000 m² in the long term - through a so-called "runner formation".

By the way, there are studies that suggest certain ingredients in blueberries can reduce the risk of colon cancer.

[Translated from here.]