Mahonia aquifolium
Berberidaceae family
Western US and Canada
A MEMBER OF THE BARBERRY FAMILY, this shrub is called mahonia, holly-leaved barberry, Rocky Mountain grape, and plenty of other names. I prefer Oregon grape because I used to live in Oregon, and it pulls at my sentimentality. Oregon grape is the state flower of Oregon, in fact. They are dainty yellow flowers, and a cheerful sight in the spring.
With glossy, hollylike leaves, Oregon grape is easy to spot even when it’s not blooming or fruiting. Resilient and attractive, it is a popular ornamental in yards and public landscaping. It grows between 3 and 6 feet (0.9 to 1.8 m) tall, and makes hearty hedges and borders.
All of this is good news for restless berry pickers of the urban wilds. If you need a fruit foraging fix and you’re near the Northwest, Oregon grape can’t be too far away.
In the late summer and early fall, the small berries ripen to a purple-blue and have a powdery, grapelike bloom. They grow in clusters, but those pesky barbed leaves present an obstacle. Some report they taste good raw, but I disagree. If they tasted better, way more people would be out picking them. Seedy, tart, and bitter, they are a face-scrunching berry for sure. Tribes in the Northwest used multiple parts of the plant for medicinal purposes, and herbalists continue to employ it in various forms. I, however, value Oregon grapes as something you can smother with refined sugar to make a damn fine jam.
In classic fashion, I didn’t know about Oregon grapes until moving back East, so I sought them while visiting family near Portland one summer. I did not need to look far—in fact, all it took was crossing the street. I picked my way along the parking lot by the condos to the nearby city park and continued working my way down; Oregon grapes grew like a plant pathway. I grabbed some salal berries for good measure, too, and in an hour I had enough to make a batch of jam. It was grapey indeed, and nearly as dark as night. I would have happily spent the rest of the trip in a flurry of picking and preserving, but our agenda had other ideas, and I had to be satisfied with the two jars of jam I did make.
M. swaseyi, or Texas barberry, is a similar shrub, but its fruit is an edible red berry. To make things especially confusing, it is sometimes called Texas Oregon grape. You can use the berries in jam or jelly just as Oregon grapes, but it might not be as pretty. Neither grows where I live now, so I’ll have to plot my next visit to the Pacific Northwest accordingly, allocating for time to walk across the street and hustle up enough berries for another couple of jars. Proximity is everything with foraging, even if you fly across the country to call yourself near.
Harvesting and Storage
These berries are fairly sturdy and able to withstand some knocking around in a bucket. They are also small, so getting a quantity takes a chunk of time. Once the berries get that nice bluish color, it’s tricky to tell when they are ripe. You can start picking in midsummer, but waiting until the berries are slightly softer makes for a better flavor. Also, they don’t all ripen at the same rate on the same plants. But I picked some that were pretty firm, and they still made good jam.
To help remove any small stems, shake the berries around in their bucket or box, which will knock them loose. Or you could try the elderberry trick of covering the berries in water and picking out the debris that rises to the surface.
Culinary Possibilities
Jelly or jam is all I’ve heard about, outside of homeopathic applications.
OREGON GRAPE JAM
Makes 1–2 half-pint jars (240–480 ml)
This recipe is scaled with my patience for picking Oregon grape berries. I made a batch the last time I visited Oregon and gave it as a wedding present to my sister and brother-in-law, along with some pot holders I’d sewn. It was a pretty chintzy wedding gift, but even so, it was hard to part with. I should make them more jam.
2–4 cups Oregon grape berries
2–3 cups (400–600 g) sugar
In a medium saucepan, add enough water to barely cover the berries. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring occasionally, until the berries are fall-apart tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Run the mixture through a food mill set over a large bowl to remove the seeds.
Discard the seeds, and measure the strained pulp. Add 1 scant cup (about 190 g) sugar for every cup of pulp. Return to the saucepan and cook, stirring constantly, until very thick. Divide between sterilized half-pint jars. If you like, seal and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes. Otherwise, cool and refrigerate your jam for up to 2 weeks.
NOTE: In a small batch, it’s easier to cook the jam down until it’s quite thick. Add pectin if you like, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Your yield on the pulp may vary depending on the mix of berries you use.
SALAL
Gaultheria shallon
Ericaceae family
Western US and Canada
Salal is a low evergreen shrub that produces dark blue berries that were, and are, important to Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. It’s an attractive plant, with bright green leaves and small white flowers that droop from pinkish red stems, but the berries have a bit of a hairy look that reminds me of testicles. Maybe that’s why more people don’t pick them nowadays.
Like Oregon grapes, salal berries are finger stainers of the first order. Their blossom ends have a distinct five-pointed star pattern that keeps them from looking too much like testicles. They’re about the size of blueberries, and sweeter than Oregon grapes. Opinions on their flavor range from sweet to mild and flat. It’s likely that differences in the character of one plant to another account for this as much as personal preference. Some people love to eat them off the plant, while others make the berries into jams or fruit leathers.
There’s a small art to picking salal berries, which do not like to give up their stems. Go for the darkest ones, which will be the most flavorful. To keep them from squishing, lightly grip one between your thumb and forefinger and roll or twist it from the stem. You can also snip off the entire long cluster with scissors and deal with stemming them at home.
Salal berries are of no matter to consumers of its primary commercial use: greenery for floral arrangements. The shapeliness of its leaves and their ability to hold up well in a vase make it a favorite of the floral industry.
There are very few foraged fruits you can’t make into jam or jelly. Whether it’s worth the effort to do so is up to you. Such is the crapshoot of foraged fruit preserves.
Some fruits taste bland raw, and some taste just plain nasty. When cooked down with sugar, though, an amazing transformation can happen. Colors deepen and flavors pop, plus you get that gorgeous thick-but-spreadable consistency and shimmery look. The whole process enchants me, even though I may curse at how hot it makes the kitchen or how many pounds of sugar I am ripping through or how canning reduces my efforts to this modest little row of pretty jars lined up on the counter after what feels like hours and hours of work.
If you have a relationship to canning fruit preserves, perhaps it is not as masochistic as mine. The important thing to keep in mind is that even experienced jam makers run into speed bumps from time to time. These can only make a successful batch seem all the more triumphant.
Anymore, I like to make fruit preserves in small batches—two to five jars or so. A smaller volume of fruit reaches the gelling point faster, and sometimes a foraging haul might be too small for a big batch. Besides, an unsuccessful small batch of fruit preserves feels like an interesting experiment, while a big batch gone wrong can wreck a whole day.