One of my favourite things to do in the summer is to go and
pick saskatoons. My kids and I went to
the Little Purple Apple U-pick last week. (formally Prairie Berry) Market managers do get a day off once in a
while but berry farmers don’t get a day off during picking season!
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| Gorgeous juicy saskatoons. |
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| Kids and picking stools. |
I think that I have picked saskatoons
almost every year of my life. As a kid
we used to pile in the back of the pickup truck with my mom, dad, grandma,
grandpa, brother, sister and drive up to the gully to pick wild
saskatoons. It was one of those hills
where you can’t see over the hood of the truck when you’re going up, but my dad
would always gun it and drive on memory.
A collection of my grandpa’s retired ties would come out to tie the
bucket around the waist so you could pick with both hands. Grandpa would help me find a good bush,
stomp the grass down and pull the tree over to hold with one hand and pick with
the other. Grandma, a world class
competitive berry picker would always cover the bottom of her bucket first and
then fill it first too. She would
actually get offended if anyone picked faster that she did! It’s mandatory to have purple hands, purple
tongue and then make pie!
The river
valley in Edmonton has great native saskatoons and there are still hidden
pockets of wild saskatoons left. There
are many u-picks around the province that would love to host a berry picking
outing. www.albertafarmfresh.com
Pie Crust:
From Horn of the Moon Cookbook by Ginny Callan.
This crust only has butter so it’s perfect for vegetarians
and other lovers of butter.
Enough for one 10” pie top and bottom.
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup cold butter
Dash of salt
5-6 Tbsp very cold water.
In a mixing bowl combine flour and salt. Cut in the butter with a knife, then a pastry
cutter, then smooth out the pieces with your fingers. Add very cold water and mix as little as
possible. Squish together dough. Wrap and chill at least an hour- overnight
works just as well. Divide into two
parts with one slightly bigger than the other.
Roll out the slightly bigger piece for the bottom and put in the pie
plate. Roll out the top and have
ready. Put in the pie filling add the
top and trim. and put in the oven right away. Bake at 400 F for 10 min and then reduce to
350F for 30minutes until pie is golden brown and the filling is juicy and
bubbling.
Filling:
Summer Fruit or Berry pies-
I use only three ingredients:
fruit, sugar, minute tapioca.
To get the right amount of filling I pour the berries or the
cut up fruit into the pie plate and mound it up in the middle then pour it back
out into a bowl. Wash or wipe the plate
to be ready for the crust.
To the fruit/berries add sugar and tapioca- stir well and
let sit while you roll out the crust.
Here are the ratios that work most of the time- developed
over many summers of “research”. Once
in a while it’s too runny or too firm, but still tastes great.
Saskatoons + 1/3 cup sugar 3 tbsp tapioca
Saskatoon/raspberry + 2/3 cup sugar 3 ½ cup tapioca
Peach- ½ cup sugar 3 tbsp tapioca
My grandma Gertie must have made thousands of pies in her
life. From helping feed threshing crews
as a girl and young woman to baking pies to take to the field during
combining. Summer was fruit and
berries, fall was apple and pumpkin, winter was lemon meringue, raisin and
cherry or maybe banana cream. Go to her
house for lunch or supper and expect to have a bunch of pies on the table for
dessert and have her cut each one in four.
A quarter of a pie for everyone!
You inherit short but eat for stout in my family. Grandma used to comment if pie crust was
“snappy”. Not a compliment. But
any pie you make yourself from scratch will taste many times better that what
you can buy. I encourage you to start a
family tradition and try your hand at pie.
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| The last lonely piece. |
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