Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.09.2011, Blaðsíða 30

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30
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 14 — 2011
Travel | Merry Berry
Preferring to offer tours that aren’t available from
the big tour providers, Guðrún started taking
people berry picking this summer. As a rule of
thumb, the berry-picking season is August to mid-
September, but because this June was particularly
cold (yes, the coldest June since 1952), Guðrún
told us the berries were ripe later than usual.
The trip began in downtown Reykjavík where
Guðrún picked us up, and proceeded to drive
us out of the city to find some ripe berry pick-
ing grounds. We had only been driving for about
thirty-minutes when she pulled over to the side
of Nesjavellir road, and we had arrived. It really
doesn’t take long to leave the bustle behind for
expansive moss covered lava fields.
AN ABUNDANCE OF CROWBERRIES
Guðrún handed us each a recycled plastic tub
that had originally contained Icelandic mjúkís ice
cream (an ice cream worth trying), and we mo-
seyed off on our separate ways, picking through
patches of crowberries. Though it is tempting to
grab the berries by the handful, Guðrún advised
us that the big ones are better and that we should
pick them one by one. “Leave some for the birds,”
she also called out a bit later.
We hadn’t been picking for very long before it
started drizzling, and we hurried back to the car
(advice: never go out in Iceland without a rain-
coat). The rain, however, didn’t put a damper on
our trip. The weather in Iceland is notorious for
changing from one moment to the next and as we
drove on down Nesjavegur road, we seemed to be
straddling the rain to our right and clear skies to
our left.
While I was already quite proud of the stash
of berries I had collected, Grapevine photographer
Alísa’s tub was practically empty. She had admit-
tedly been eating them faster than she could col-
lect them. By the way, there’s no need to wash the
berries before eating them (as long as you steer
clear of dingle berry droppings), as they grow wild,
pesticide-free.
A few kilometres later, we pulled over again at
a beautiful small valley. This time before we set off,
Guðrún offered us some delicious crowberry muf-
fins that she had baked the night before, motivat-
ing us to step up our berry picking game.
Absorbed in the task at hand, I was struck by
how peaceful it was there. Apart from the muted
sound of berries dropping into my tub and a raven
crying in the distance, there was a marked still-
ness around us. And that, I thought, is what the
Icelandic experience is really about. Of course,
it’s also about the rain, and the rainclouds soon
caught up with us, and we once again hurried off
to the car (really, remember to bring your rain-
coat!).
A SMALL HAVEN OF BILBERRIES
We headed back in the direction of Reykjavík,
making one last stop for the afternoon. Until
then, we had been finding the occasional bilberry
amongst the abundance of crowberries, but this
stop turned out to be a small bilberry haven. The
bilberry looks like a blueberry, and in Icelandic it’s
called “bláber,” which translates directly to “blue-
berry,” but it’s actually a bit smaller and more fla-
vourful than the blueberry.
Being bigger and juicier than the slightly bitter
crowberry, the bilberry is definitely my favourite
of the two (wild strawberries are my favourite of
Iceland’s berries, but they are even more rare than
the bilberry). With more self-control I might have
been able to make an Icelandic “bláberjasúpa”
(bilberry soup), but here I ran into the same prob-
lem our photographer was having, and very few of
the bilberries I picked actually ended up in my tub.
I was surprised to learn that none of these
berries are picked commercially and sold at the
supermarket, so the only opportunity to get them
is to go out and pick them yourself. Guðrún didn’t
know why they weren’t sold at the market (instead
we import expensive blueberries), but she figured
it’s because people simply pick them on their own.
The crowberries are, however, picked for the pur-
poses of making “Kvöldsól” (Evening Sun), which
is Iceland’s only home grown red wine.
Finally, our hands and tongues stained purple,
we piled back into the car with our tubs full of
berries, and headed back to the city where it was
incidentally sunny and there were no signs of it
having rained. My antioxidant-rich berries would
soon become crowberry muffins ala Guðrún’s rec-
ipe, which she gladly shared with us when we left.
Words
Anna Andersen
Photography
Alísa Kalyanova
Picking Wild Berries In Iceland
This tour was offered by Guðrún Helga Sigurðardóttir of Mountainclimbing.is.
See www.mountainclimbing.is for more information or contact Guðrún at
ghs@mountainclimbing.is.
It’s A Blue Berry, Not A Blueberry!
Those blue berries in Iceland, which are called
“bláber,” are not blueberries. They’re actually
bilberries or bog bilberries. Both of which look
like blue berries, but are slightly smaller and
more flavourful to varying degrees.
Like many Icelanders, Guðrún Helga Sig-
urðardóttir was brought up picking berries.
The activity of going out to the country to
pick berries, called berjamór in Icelandic, is
still practiced today though Guðrún says it’s
less common than it used to be when she was
young.