One of my favorite kids' books is Robert McCloskey's Blueberries for Sal , which is about a little girl's encounter with a blueberry-picking black bear. (Oh, those were the days.)
I don't believe the book specifies, but Sal was no doubt after Maine wild blueberries. For those who have never had fresh wild blueberries, they are tiny and pea-sized, and amazingly sweet. When we were kids, we'd go far up into the woods on the outskirts of Worcester and, armed with our lunches and half-gallon Tupperware containers, spend the day blueberrying. It was backbreaking work - those bushes are low, and we didn't have blueberry rakes, we picked by hand - but the blueberry pies, muffins, and pancakes were worth it. I remember one year when I knocked over my container and spilled a couple of pints worth of berries. I know that there's no use crying over spilt blueberries, but I did anyway.
Most wild blueberries aren't sold fresh (they're frozen, or turned into jams and fillings), so when I see them in the grocery store (which is rare) or on a farm stand, I lunge for them. So much better than the marble-sized blueberries that are more wildly available.
Maine is the blueberry capital of the world. If you're up there in the summer, you'll be able to tell by the number of stands selling blueberries, and the number of objets for sale that sport a blueberry motif.
But Maine's position as the blueberry capital of the world is now being challenged by their neighbor to the north, Quebec. This is according to a recent article by Beth Daley in The Boston Globe.
Pourquoi? You might ask.
Well, let's give a shout out to our friend global warming for this one.
Every four years or so, killing spring frosts hit Quebec, nearly obliterating the year's harvest around St.-Jean Lake, while Down East Maine, some 350 miles southeast, reliably produced millions of pounds a year for use in jams, pie fillings, and muffins.
But temperatures are rising in Canada, and so, too, are the annual blueberry harvests...
It's not clear just what this will mean for Maine. Since the wild blueberry wars have been heating up, demand for blueberries has been growing, thanks to all those medical reports about how good blueberries are for you. (Not to mention that the value of the Canadian dollar - for years a laughing stock currency - has been rising to greater parity with the US dollar, so Maine growers don't have to worry so much about Canadian blueberries being cheaper. And those of us who live in states where a lot of Canadian coins end up in the mix no longer have to resort to subterfuge to get rid of those pesky Canadian quarters that mysteriously show up in your wallet from time to time.)
Meanwhile, Maine wild blueberry harvesters have found that their weather has grown more erratic, less dependable - different patterns of sunshine, heat, rain - which has them questioning their future business.
As the climate shifts and the earth, there will, of course, be winners (at least temporarily) and losers, and those of us in more temperate zones are apt to be among the overall winners. (Do you really want to be living in Phoenix if the average temperature rises and no one's willing to let you suck their aquifer dry?)
Still, there are so few local food items where New England can claim anything like an industry. Maine lobsters and potatoes. Wellfleet oysters. Vermont cheddar. Maple sugar. MacIntosh apples. Cape Cod cranberries.
I just hate the thought of Robert McCloskey's plucky little Sal having to scoot across the border and venture into Canada for her blueberries.
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