The Free Radical

The first thing to report is that we were out of the truck all of twelve and a half seconds before Young Eagle flew up from his perch beside our parking spot… and then proceeded to spiral up the air currents, foreshadowing our own familiar ascent… to the mountain plateau. It feels good to be greeted thusly!

(excerpt from The Garden by Unitopia from their 2008 album The Garden)

Sometimes I can’t wait for the berries to form and properly ripen, so I always try eating the flowers first when they’re in bloom. For most berry bushes, the flowers pale in comparison to the mature fruit. A happy exception– and new discovery– are the flowers from the saskatoon bushes.

And what’s even better is that the larger the flower the better the taste! They really have no excuses though; just look at the deliciousness of the view they enjoy every day… along with the quiet song of the river. Of course they taste fantastic!

Their taste– and scent, for that matter– are unmistakably vanilla. With saskatoon berries it can be pretty hit-and-miss… but it’s the berries that retain a hint of that vanilla goodness that really grab your attention later in the season… and some of them do, giving them that exotic flavour that you just wouldn’t expect from a berry named “saskatoon.”

I’ll try not to eat too many of the flowers… because I want the berries later, but right now it’s the only source of that smooth vanilla flavour until the sweet clover does its thing toward the middle of summer. The sweet clover combines well with the fifth-dimensional juniper berries, whereas the saskatoon flowers combine nicely with the leftover bearberries– which are unfortunately becoming rather scarce now– adding a touch of sweetness.

Yes, I think I have a new favourite flower! (But I still eat a ton of dandelions along the way too!)