Summer after summer, I have been trying to bond with fresh blueberries but it has not come to fruition.
This is not for a lack of trying. I have traveled miles to find different varieties of blueberries (wild, ‘Spartan,’ ‘Bluecrop,’ ‘Chandler’), sampled ones from farm stands and those that come with carbon footprints, analyzed the size and popped in small, medium-sized and big ones. But I still don’t really “get” them. When ripe, I find them to be squishy, not juicy; and flavorless, not sweet or tart.
Just to be clear, it’s not like I hate them but I don’t love them either. It’s more like I don’t understand their mere existence. In a summer fruit salad, amid the melons, strawberries, grapes and bananas, I won’t pick them out and toss them, but if they were MIA, I certainly would not miss them. And in a parfait, if the granola is nutty and crunchy and the tangy yogurt creamy, the blueberries get outplayed in taste and texture. So why add them at all?
I know, I know, blueberries are considered the king of antioxidants, packed with vitamins C & K, low in calories and known to lower blood pressure. Much as I am mindful of what I eat, I like fruits that are assertive and have some brass, shall we say, and that’s where blueberries let me down.