New Meadows, Idaho, sits in a high mountain valley, flat farmland surrounded by mountains that include many acres of Payette National Forest. These mountains provide marvelous places to ride and pick berries.
I grew up on a small farm there during the 1940s and 1950s, adjacent to an established hot springs and rustic resort, Zim’s Plunge, which had grown from just soaking pools and a few rustic cabins to a concrete pool with changing rooms and a dining area serving hamburgers and milkshakes. The cabins remained too, having received some upgrades: electric lights, heat, kitchen appliances, and that most blessed item, an indoor privy! The plunge also provided a diversion for farm kids who had no other real contact with the outside world.
It was a very popular place over the Fourth of July. Many visitors were from Boise or other larger towns around, and they were seeking to be immersed in the “rural” experience. As neighbors, we strived to enhance that. We had an old two-person buggy and good workhorses; Dad would hook up one of the horses and we would do a trip around the plunge to the delight of the city folks, who thought they were seeing the Old West. On other days, my sister and I would ride our horses around past the cabins and plunge. All the kids would come running to pat the horses. We offered free rides, of course.
One year, at the end of July, my sister and I realized that we had both bounty for our family and a business opportunity. We would get some buckets, saddle the horses and head to the hills. Huckleberries were coming on!
We’re talking tenacious little eastern suckers that clung for all-get-out to the loose forest loam. They fought each other for every drop of water, because it’s hot in them-thar hills. The berries were found in open areas that had been burned or logged. I knew which logging road to take to get to some of the best patches. You could smell them from half a mile away; the aroma wafted on the breeze to reveal the bashful patch. We tied our horses to a tree and picked.
It wasn’t easy work. The berries were small and the sun hot. In four hours, we would pick around a gallon together. Rather than being extremely juicy, every bit of flavor was concentrated into a small, intense berry. To be really good, the berries have to be a little deprived. Lack of water, a late spring and cold nights forced those Idaho berries to develop character.
After picking, it was back to Zim’s. We got a whole dollar per quart for these rare and almost unavailable delicacies. We would have a line of people waiting to buy the berries.
Picking was hard, but what to do with the berries you kept could be a problem, too. Walking into the house, you were overwhelmed by the marvelous aroma. The berries were so intense, if you put them in a bag in your refrigerator, everything would take on the flavor. Yumm, huckleberry butter! If you froze them, you’d better put them in a quart jar, screw the lid on, then dip the top in paraffin. Otherwise, everything would taste of huckleberry. Good for cookies but not so good for spaghetti. If you made a pie with them, you’d be wise to use apples for half of the filling, because the berries were so strong.
Drop down to your local soft ice cream hut, get a quart of vanilla, take it home and immediately add a cup of those huckleberries. Pure ambrosia, heaven in a bite, a divine titillation of the tongue.
Years passed, and I moved from central Idaho to Portland and went berrying on Mount Adams. What a disappointment! These huckleberries had not reached their full potential. Just a sad imitation. Blueberries on steroids with bursts of bravado. They were kind of “deluxe blueberries,” but not the renegade huckleberries I knew. Spoiled by too much water and a great climate!
I mourned the loss of Idaho flavor. The remembrance of those berries brought me back to my Idaho childhood when, by August, both the tourists and the huckleberries were gone and life on the ranch returned to normal. It was time for us to harvest our crop of hay, and then in September, our wheat. By October, we had our first snow that would last until April.
Fortunately, the huckleberries we had put away for pies, jams, syrups, and cobblers brought back those warm summer days, when we picked those precious pearls of purple.
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