Long Island Gardening Community Resource

A few weeks ago I went on a foraging walk with the “Wildman” Steve Brill. He showed the group a tree with edible berries and I knew right away I had seen them before, loads of them. So long story short, I had a wild harvest of probably about 15-20 lbs. of berries. I feel as if I barely made a dent in the grove either, so I did leave plenty for the birds.

What was I to do with a boat-load of small berries that have seeds in the middle?

I looked up some recipes and most were for jam. They all had a different way of trying to get the seeds out, like pressing it through a potato masher or a sieve, etc. etc. I tried boiling them for about a half hour and pressing them through a small strainer, but the pulp all got stuck in the strainer. I thought to myself “Some jelly this is going to be.” So I decided I would continue doing what I was doing and press all the liquid out and then reduce it until it becomes a full flavored syrup (almost).

After it had reduced for about 45 minutes under very low heat, I let it cool and put the delicious berry syrup into ice cube trays. Now, I have about 40 ice cubes and 1 jar full of dense berry flavor I can use for whatever I wish.

One side note - If your going to try this, the berries will burn on the bottom of the pot if the heat is on high or even medium, so bring it up to te boil very slowly and keep mixing! I learned the hard way.
; )

Some ideas for use:

Pancake Syrup - Mix with Maple Syrup (tried it - it was real good)
Mix with Vodka or any other liquid you want (Orange juice or other juices)
Use it in a sauce - It has about 17X the lycopene as tomatoes (which is what gives it the red pigment)

Interesting Fact:

-According to a USDA article, analysis showed that, ounce for ounce, the typical autumn olive berry is up to 17 times higher in lycopene than the typical raw tomato. Lycopene has generated widespread interest as a possible deterrent to heart disease and cancers of the prostate, cervix and gastrointestinal tract.