All In The Family

This will be my third post about berry picking and I am not even ashamed! When I was a kid I loved and hated berry picking. I loved the berries but hated the work. But I still did it. Probably because my parents made me. 

A couple years ago, a friend of mine went to Sweden to visit her brother. He happened to be dating a Norweigen girl. They spent some time visiting Norway. My friend was surprised how much they liked berry picking and mushroom foraging. She said it was like a competitive sport. That may have been an over statement. But it was definitely a popular outing. 

That got me thinking about where my love for wild berries came from. The easy answer would be through experiences; picking then baking with my parents. But where did their love come from? Well the likely source was their parents! And it just so happens that my Grandmother is a first generation Canadian with Norweigian parents. So it wouldn't be far off to assume that berry picking is part of my heritage. 

Now a critic (my father) would say well most cultures picked wild fruit/berries, especially at the turn of the century when families were flooding the Canadian prairies (which my Norwegian great grandparents did). But I would like to think that it is a cultural tradition that has been passed down through the generations. And it is one that I am sharing now with my kids. 

This is my Grandma Sadie and my Auntie Sharon blueberry picking in 1951.