Blueberry Crumble

My Grandpa's GMC truck turns left, off of the smooth pavement and onto a worn gravel road. Grandpa and my Dad are up front, while Mom, Lace and I are somewhat squashed in the small backseat. Lace opens the back window and we stick our heads out, ever on the lookout for a stray moose, craning our necks to see into every bog that flies past or to peer studiously into the mud for fresh tracks. The tires fly over the sandy road, lined with bushy pines, white birch and the orange spray of my favorite wildflower, jewelweed. 

The road narrows and branches scratch mercilessly at the sides of the truck, leaves stripping off as they whip into the open window and then out again. My Grandpa slows way down as we come to a make-shift bridge--maybe two planks laid over a small gully or a culvert that is badly eroded and just barely passable. The truck rocks back and forth as it makes its way over several severe pot-holes, the road pock-marked with the lot of them. 

My Grandpa turns right, left, and then left again. It's a labyrinth of unending gravel road. An unceasing maze of scrub pine and bog. Sometimes we make our way through close forest, the trees hugging the road. Then we break free, into an open area where the trees have been logged off and it's nothing but mountains, rising tall on either side, covered in forest green with the marks of logging etched starkly onto its majestic sides. And once again I'm amazed that my Grandpa remembers how to get there. The place we go every year for berries. 

The paper company owns acres upon acres of land in Northern Maine. Their logging companies clear-cut the forest, stripping everything and piling the unusable wood at the edge of the road. These pine trunks lie helter-skelter, bleached from the sun, like a pile of enormous toothpicks discarded by the giants that must live just beyond the hills. And this is where the berries grow. 

My grandpa slows again. We've reached a marshy area and a huge puddle lies right across the road. Lace and I start to look for our buckets, contorting our bodies and stretching with our fingertips, confined by the small space. This large puddle is the last landmark before we pull off and clamber out. Every year we wonder if this will be the year we get hopelessly stuck. Grandpa guns the engine and the wheels spin, mud flies and we're finally through. And we cross our fingers that we'll be just as lucky on the way back. 

And then we're here. We scramble out, grabbing old Shedd's peanut butter tin cans and we pick our way over the pile of dead wood, spreading out over the lonesome landscape. The footing is uncertain, the solid ground somewhere far beneath the mass of vegetation we tread upon. My mom spends the first few minutes snapping pictures of the curious flora. Dead pine wood. Spongey moss and tiny just-starting-out pines. And of course, the blueberries. Wild blueberry bushes aren't like cultivated ones. They are short. Very short. Only a foot off the ground and loaded with tiny, brilliantly-blue berries that are juicy and spectacularly sweet. The first few minutes are spent mostly eating berries and exclaiming over the abundance of beautiful fruit. We move from patch to patch, trying to find that golden spot where you can sit for ten minutes and pick all around without stirring. 

Dad and Grandpa are soon lost to our eyes and ears, swallowed by landscape as they move farther down the road in search of the best pickin'. Bits of conversation rise through the bush, disembodied voices, a conversation between mom and daughters, punctuated with the pinging of berries on the bottom of a tin pail. The gnats find us and pester, buzzing around our ears. Every once in awhile my sister has enough of the pesty things and flaps crazily at the air, bellowing frustration at the bugs. 

We pick and pick, standing up to stretch our screaming backs and cramping legs. The picking slows. It's always the top two inches that are the hardest to fill. Grandpa and Dad appear, each with a pail full of sapphire fruit. Once again, they've picked more than us girls. We carefully make our way back to the truck and pile in. Laden with pailfuls of blueberries and happy grins. We're tired, our teeth and fingers stained blue, but happily content with the treasure stowed safely in the back of the truck. The ride home is much more subdued and we are glad when we pull into camp. Glad to be rid of the truck and thankful for some space. Grammy immediately starts picking over the "burries". Lace and I sneak handfuls and smile knowingly. There are lots of pies in our future. 

Blueberry Crumble

Makes one 8 x 8 pan

Total Time: 45 min to 1 hour

1/2 cup sugar 

1 T. cornstarch*

big pinch of salt

4 cups fresh blueberries*

1 cup flour

2/3 cup old-fashioned oats

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

8 T. cold butter, cut into small pieces

*This recipe calls for fresh, not frozen, blueberries. Frozen blueberries will release too much liquid and you will have a runny crumble. However, I didn't have quite enough fresh berries so I ended up using 3/4 cup frozen berries in addition to 1 1/4 cups fresh. To compensate, I upped the cornstarch another generous half-tablespoonful. 

Stir together, sugar, cornstarch and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine flour, oats, brown sugar and cinnamon.

Add butter in small chunks.

And then cut into oat mixture until mixture resembles wet sand. 

You will have some pea sized lumps of butter left.

 You can do this with a pastry cutter, or a small plastic cup or you can just "rub" the butter into small pieces with your fingers.

Now, stir the sugar mixture in with your berries.

Spread the berries in the bottom of an 8 x 8 pan and then distribute the oat mixture on top.

Bake for 35 - 40 minutes at 375 degrees, until berries are bubbling and topping is golden brown.

Let sit for 15 minutes before serving.

Recipe adapted from Cooking for Two 2009.