The Huckleberry Book

The Huckleberry Book
All About the West's Most Treasured Wild Berry, From Botany to Bears, Mountain Lore to Recipes

by 'Asta Bowen

illustrations by Karen Leigh Noice

published by Farcountry Press

• Here it is, the final word on the most sought-after wild fruit in the mountain west, the tangy berry that makes its domestic cousin, the blueberry, seem like bland stuff. This wildly popular book features 37 delectable recipes from cakes to champagne.

  This book also examines Rocky Mountain huckleberry ecology and lore, including defining the types, picking and preserving, proper manners in a huckleberry patch (after all, huckleberries are one of the favorite foods of bears); all done with charming humor and sheer joy in finding, picking, and eating the huckleberry and enjoying its mountain domain.

• 96 pages, 6'' x 9'', 7 illustrations, 100 softcovers per case
• softcover

Excerpt:

"Like everyone else, huckleberries cannot be understood apart from the place they come from. The berry's context is appropriate to its character: wild, remote, slightly dangerous, exquisite, irreproducible. In these respects, the high ranges of the Northern Rockies are ideal huckleberry habitat.

Like other plants, Vaccinium globulare has requirements for growth and production. It has certain preferences for elevation, moisture, soil, slope, aspect to the sun and micro climate factors. However, unlike indicator species such as queen's cup or beargrass, which are found only in one particular forest type, the huckleberry is widely adapted across several ecosystems. One exception is that the berry is generally not found in dense stands of spruce/cedar habitat because the leafy cover doesn't allow enough sun to the forest floor. Otherwise the huckleberry is a genial member of the forest community and coexists happily with all manner of other species, as long as its particular needs are met by the habitat.

Truly, the amount of territory that meets those needs is vast; huckleberries are found in profusion throughout the mountains of the inland Northwest. In general, prime huckleberry habitat will have the following characteristics...."

-from the fourth chapter, The Secret Life of Huckleberries