There’s something fulfilling about surviving off of the wild, isn’t there?
I just noticed a story about a man they discovered down in South America. The scientist discovered him a few years ago but said he has made it clear that he doesn’t want any contact with them so they just keep up with him on trail cameras.
Somehow, he has been able to eke out a living in the jungle all of these years. They figure the rest of his tribe has died. While most of us might not be quite that tough, it is fun to be able to at least supplement our food supply off of nature, isn’t it? Someday I’m going to get a book and learn more of what wild plants are edible. But, for now, I can only supplement.
This topic is fresh on my mind because I just returned from a backpacking trip into the wilderness. As of right now, the huckleberries are starting to ripen and the thimbleberries are barely starting. I picked two to four of them.
While backpacking, I always eat flavored oatmeal for breakfast. It’s lightweight and you only have to add hot water to have a meal. There’s no better breakfast than to throw a handful of huckleberries in the bowl to enhance the oatmeal.
If you’re going out for a day of berry picking, then you’ll be more organized than if you are picking on a backpacking trip. By that I mean you’ll have buckets and such to use. What I’ve done when I’m backpacking the last few years is just put them in water bottles.
If you’ve ever picked huckleberries, then you know that it can be time consuming. And because they’re so small, they’re easy to drop. As long as it takes to pick a bunch, you sure don’t want to waste any, so here’s how I do it.
I pick them and put them in my baseball cap. While transferring them into the water bottle, you’re going to drop a lot. Bad deal. So here’s what I do. I stick the water bottle in back of the cap (the hole where you adjust the size). Pick up the berries and pour them into the bottle. If you miss, no biggie — they just fall back into the cap.
You probably know more uses for wild berries than me, but here’s some of the ways that I like using them.
Of course the first way is gobbling them down while picking them. Then as mentioned above, I love putting them in my oatmeal. They really add to the flavor.
Another thing I like to do is put some in my water bottle that I’m drinking out of. That is the original berry-flavored drink. It’s especially nice if you’re drinking water out of the river sterilized in your coffee pot over a campfire. The berries will help mask the aluminum aftertaste and the smoky flavor due to the smoke and ashes falling into the pot while heating.
Another way I love them, and this may almost be my most favorite, is to throw some on top of a bowl of ice cream. Ahhh, they’re to die for. Because they’re so small, they freeze while eating the ice cream and are not quite crunchy but for sure crystalized.
Then of course you’ll want to freeze the excess to use for the rest of the year. We love making smoothies out of them. Smoothies are super easy to make. I just got a new Weston blender and it works great for making smoothies.
Here’s how I make them.
1. Freeze some yogurt.
2. Throw it on a cutting board and cut it into smaller chunks.
3. Put it in the blender. Pour in 1 1/2 times as much milk.
4. Throw in any frozen fruit, in this case huckleberries and nuts (almonds, walnuts or cashews). Believe it or not, even a little frozen spinach is great.
With it being as hot as it is and not feeling like cooking or eating a big meal, we often times eat a smoothie for lunch or supper. It’s light, tasty and my contribution to eating healthy.
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
