Lingonberry Topics

• red currants
• mild laxative
• cumberland sauce
• lingonberries
• raw fruits
• game meats
• sophisticated taste
• folk medicine
• salt pork
• russian folk
• compote
• larder
• caterpillars
• major component
• porridge
• meatballs
• moths
• soft drink
• pears
• room temperature

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• north-american-plants
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• lingonberries
• 2008-06-20
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Lingonberry, Lingonberry

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The berries are quite tart, so they are almost always cooked and sweetened before eating in the form of lingonberry jam, compote, juice, or syrup. The raw fruits are also frequently simply mashed with sugar, which preserves most of their nutrients and flavor and even enables storing them at room temperature (in closed but not necessarily sealed containers). Lingonberries served this way or as compote often accompany game meats and liver dishes.

Lingonberry preserve is commonly eaten with meatballs and potatoes in Sweden and Norway. In Sweden and Russia, when sugar was still a luxury item, lingonberries were usually preserved simply by putting them whole into bottles of water.

In Russia this preserve had been known as "lingonberry water" ( ) and is a traditional soft drink. In Russian folk medicine, lingonberry water was used as a mild laxative. A traditional Finnish dish is sauted reindeer ( poronkristys ) with mashed potatoes and lingonberries, either cooked or raw with sugar. In Poland, lingonberries are often mixed with pears to create a sauce served with poultry or game. Lingonberries can also be used to replace red currants when creating Cumberland sauce to give it a more sophisticated taste.

Caterpillars of the Coleophoridae case-bearer moths Coleophora glitzella , Coleophora idaeella and Coleophora vitisella are not known to eat anything but lingonberry leaves.

They were a major component in keeping people healthy in Sweden through the long winters, when fresh vegetables were not available. A coarse porridge with fat salt pork and lingonberry preserve was a classic meal of the winter, and a large crock of the berries preserved with sugar would be found in every larder. Owing to their high content of benzoic acid, they have the additional virtue of being able to be made into preserves without boiling.

Source: Wikipedia > Vaccinium Vitis Idaea