Stock up on blueberries! | The Press

Cultivated blueberries arrived in mid-July in the fields of southern Quebec, and they are followed these days by wild blueberries, which grow mainly in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean. If the harvest is very variable in the South, it promises to be abundant in the North… An excellent excuse to gorge on it!

Simon Chabot
The Press

“I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but things are going well with us,” says Amélie de la Durantaye, co-owner with her spouse, Luc Lussier, of Bleu ciel bleuets, which has 4,200 blueberry plants in Saint-Pie, Montérégie. . “The fruits ripened ten days in advance, and we have a lot of people picking your own. »

To fill baskets with blue berries, however, do not delay in the southern regions of Quebec, because the season will end in about ten days. A season that some producers prefer to forget. “It’s pretty much the worst year since I took over my father’s farm in 2017,” laments Raphaël Gaucher, from the blueberry farm Le rêve bleu, in Saint-Damase, yet very close to Saint-Pie.

“The winter cold has damaged the buds of many of my varieties, continues the one who operates 9000 plants. I will not be selling blueberries in the grocery store this summer. For U-pick, it was a little less bad…”

A little further west, in Saint-Jacques-le-Mineur, the harvest was so poor at the Édouard VII blueberry field that Manon Landry decided, with regret, not to open to pickers. “It’s the first time it’s happened,” says the one whose plantation is now 17 years old. “In addition to the cold, we ran out of bumblebees for pollination. We lost about 70% of our small production. »

“We have less fruit, but they are big, the quality is very good,” observes Benoit Coulombe, owner of the Giroflée organic farm, which has 6,000 plants in Hemmingford.

In Montérégie, as in Estrie and Chaudière-Appalaches, farms grow highbush blueberries in particular. These fruits, three to five times larger than wild blueberries, grow in shrubs 1.8 m high, a “culture that is more like that of an orchard”, specifies the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Quebec (MAPAQ). And which is experiencing some growth, with 525 producers in 2021, up 12% over five years.

Around the wild blueberry

However, the “giant” blueberry (as it is often nicknamed) remains very marginal compared to the wild blueberry. On average, Quebec has produced around 2.5 million pounds of highbush blueberries in recent years, compared to 60 million pounds of wild blueberries, which grow in tillers near the ground.

In Quebec, about 80% of the production of wild blueberries is done in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, where the harvest is beginning these days. And she looks great.

“A fair amount of rain, a little sunshine: this year we had very good conditions for wild blueberries,” says Pierre-Luc Gaudreault, general manager of the Syndicat des producteurs de bleuets du Québec (SPBQ), which has some 275 members. producers.

If nothing comes to spoil the party by mid-September, the SPBQ expects a harvest of around 100 million pounds of blueberries, not far from the 2016 record of 112 million pounds. with an attractive price on top of that, that’s good news for producers,” adds Mr. Gaudreault. Particularly on the heels of a difficult year in 2021, with just £30m.

Barely between 2% and 4% of all these blueberries will be consumed fresh, the rest will be frozen to be sold and then processed, especially abroad. “About 70% of production is exported, particularly to the United States, but also to Japan,” said the director general of the SPBQ. Wild blueberries enjoy an excellent reputation, in particular because 98% of production is done without inputs in the year of harvest.

A long tradition

In human memory, there have always been blueberries in Quebec. The natives made a paste of it which could be kept all winter. The fruit was also dried in the sun to be used later during the cold season, a practice quickly adopted by the French colonists.

A devastating forest fire in 1870 played an important role in the history of blueberries in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, because the little fruit grows well in burnt areas.

“It would seem that it is thanks to the Grand Feu that blueberries have become an identity product and a major economic activity for the region,” summarizes Nellie Fillion-Bois, a former MAPAQ employee, in foodie storiesmemorialists Rose-Hélène Coulombe and Michel Jutras.

“In my own book, the blueberry is an identity product for all of Quebec,” says Rose-Hélène Coulombe. In rural areas, she recalls that all the children were given a small boiler to go and pick blueberries. “Little girl, I hated it, but it was part of our realities,” she laughs.

Some used blueberries to make alcohol, like the “bagosse” of the Magdalen Islands, others macerated them like cherries or used dried fruit in cooking game meat. But in most families, blueberries were used mainly in the composition of desserts: pies, cakes and puddings. “My mother made us a white blueberry cake and she served it with a semi-liquid vanilla sauce, it was pretty stupid,” recalls Rose-Hélène Coulombe.

Blueberry Steamed Pudding

Blueberry pudding is a classic dessert from the Quebec countryside. Almost every family has its own recipe, with its own set of particularities. In general, it was prepared in a round dish, explains the memoirist Rose-Hélène Coulombe, who is now vice-president of the Saint-Romuald Historical Society, in Lévis. The recipe we offer is inspired by that of the maternal grandmother of Monique Parent, treasurer of the organization.

Until the last century, cooking was often done from memory, with approximate measurements. The version below, with more precise quantities, was cooked in a bain-marie, but uncovered, which gives it an air of kinship with cobblers, American desserts also popular in Quebec. Baking under cover will result in a paler, fluffier cake.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tbsp. baking powder (baking powder)
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1/2 lb cold butter cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 2 cups blueberries
• 1/4 cup sugar or brown sugar

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Place a clean cloth at the bottom of a large ovenproof dish, which will serve as a bain-marie. Butter a metal loaf pan of about 25 cm by 12 cm. A round cake tin 20 cm in diameter will also do the trick.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, butter and milk in a bowl to form a dough. Do not overmix, so that you still have pea-sized pieces of butter in the batter.
3. Roll the dough out until it’s about twice the size of the loaf pan. Place in the mold.
4. Pour half of the blueberries over the batter, then the sugar, then the other half of the fruit. Fold the dough over the fruit.
5. Place the mold in the center of the dish in which there is a cloth and pour boiling water into the dish (around the mold) until the water reaches halfway up the mould.
6. Bake for about 2 hrs 30 mins. Cooking uncovered will give a crispier texture. If the mold is covered, with aluminum foil for example, the texture will be softer. Add a little water as needed during cooking to maintain its level in the bain-marie.
7. Let cool for 30 minutes. Enjoy plain, with cream or ice cream.