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Change my mind: bilberries aka European blueberries (small, dark red/purple flesh) are superior to the American version (large, blue skin, but white and tastele

Change my mind: bilberries aka European blueberries (small, dark red/purple flesh) are superior to the American version (large, blue skin, but white and tasteless on the inside). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilberry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilberry

bensecure 3y ago
> (large, blue skin, but white and tasteless on the inside). That's just farmed blueberries. Wild blueberries are smaller, with blue and much more flavourful insides. It's an unfortunate reality with grocery stores that since people buy based on looks, farms will optimize for what looks good rather than what tastes good.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- zdragnar 3y ago
  They also optimize for transportation, which in the US tends to be very far indeed. Many kinds of fruit and veg are picked when they are just ripe, or not yet ripe and artificially ripened with ethylene or similar.
  - joecool1029 3y ago
    The sad state of grocery store tomatoes is a testament to optimizing for transportation. The best tasting ones blemish/spoil easily. The tougher ones usually sold in stores just don't have much flavor.
- Turskarama 3y ago
  It's not even about optimizing for looks so much as size. A given blueberry bush will grow a certain _number_ of blueberries, while they are sold by weight. For that reason the farmer makes more money by getting the bush to grow the largest blueberries possible, and the larger ones tend to taste less good.
  - scottlamb 3y ago
    Agreed, and so I'm a little skeptical of this article talking about tasty giant blueberries.
  - o11c 3y ago
    From my experience (with homegrown berries) I would disagree; it's probably just that farmers have to optimize for "will not go bad on the way to the store". Maximum size and number of berries are determined by variety, and largely trade off against each other, though (probably climate dependent) some varieties just don't seem to do well at all. Actual size and sweetness is determined by how much water you give them and how long you leave them on the bush. Optimal picking time is determined by: go down and see when you think they're ready, then wait 2 more weeks before actually picking them; there should be just a handful starting to go bad. With some (but not all) varieties, you can also go by feel: if barely touching the berry makes it fall off, it's ready. If you only have a small number of bushes and they aren't fully enclosed, the birds will eat them all before they actually ripen. At commercial scale this isn't very significant since the area can't support that many birds for the rest of the summer.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      Thick skin on a large blueberry is probably more palatable than thick skin on a small blueberry.
    - fsckboy 3y ago
      >sweetness is determined by how much water you give them and how long you leave them on the bush with wine grapes, sweetness (and other flavor qualities) depend on the sunlight times ratio of surface area of leaves to number of "berries". If the weather is great, you can grow more great grapes, but if the weather is poor you prune off half the fruit when it is still small and green (it's called the green harvest), and the remaining grapes come out higher quality, concentrating the sugar from more leaves. You might try it with a blueberry bush to see if those fruits taste better.
- Alex3917 3y ago
  > Wild blueberries are smaller, with blue and much more flavourful insides. If you remove all the excess water from farmed blueberries, the taste is about the same. You just need to aggressively sweat them. This obviously doesn’t work if you want to eat them fresh, but there are better berries for eating fresh anyway.
- declan_roberts 3y ago
  Not only farmed blueberries, but probably grown in South America and shipped to the USA.
- calf 3y ago
  Are wild blueberries = huckleberries? I read that huckleberries are delicious but could not be domesticated, many attempts were made but failed.
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    Unfortunately the name "huckleberry" is applied to a number of berries across two genera. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry
- henrikschroder 3y ago
  > That's just farmed blueberries. No, it's a different species, vaccinium corymbosum. It's farmed, because it can be farmed, because of the bush size and growing conditions. Wild European blueberries, vaccinium myrtillus, can't be farmed. If we could, we would, but we can't, so instead we employ hordes of seasonal workers to go out in the forests and harvest them during the month-long season.
  - jamincan 3y ago
    Myrtillus is the bilberry. High-bush blueberries (corymbosum) are the farmed variety in North America and while there are wild high-bush varieties, wild blueberries most commonly referring to the smaller, sweeter, low-bush varieties.
- DropInIn 3y ago
  Actually it's about ROI. Larger blueberries weigh more and so there is selective pressure and growing preferences which lead to large watery tasteless but heavy berries as the preference for crop outcomes. It's all about ROI.
FpUser 3y ago
I've eaten both and have no clear preference, love either. Blueberries are far from tasteless but yes the taste of bilberry is different and stronger.
Tiktaalik 3y ago
> tasteless on the inside Blueberries are enormously flavourful but I know what you mean in that occasionally I have come across blueberries that are seemingly grown for size and not taste, and seem bland and barely tart at all. (I've experienced the same with other fruit as well, such as strawberries) But yea if you think blue berries are tasteless you need to get some actual good blueberries. Unfortunately you've been eating the bad stuff!
Blackthorn 3y ago
There are many different types of American blueberries. The Reka and the Blue Ray, for example, couldn't be more different. (I strongly prefer the Blue Rays, but I'll gladly pick Rekas when the season opens.)
- nkurz 3y ago
  Reka is an odd choice as an example of an American blueberry. While it's increasingly common to grow here, it was actually developed in New Zealand. "Reka" is named for the Maori word for "sweet". Which is also a little ironic, since they are one of the more tart blueberries. I like them, though!
anthomtb 3y ago
American blueberries are the only ones I know. How would I, as resident of middle America, obtain these "bilberries"?
- resolutebat 3y ago
  It's sometimes called whortleberry or huckleberry in the US, although the latter in particular may refer to any of numerous berries. Frozen berries are exported from Europe though and can probably be found in specialist shops, the French in particular are fond of them (myrtilles). The texture is unfortunately lost but the taste does come through quite well.
  - kzrdude 3y ago
    They are seasonal and picked wild so even in Sweden where the country is full of these berries, they are available fresh to buy for about a month per year. I think they are picked and exported frozen from Poland and Sweden among other places.
    - ajuc 3y ago
      In rural Poland it's a common seasonal activity to gather them in forests in July, you get whole family go to the forest for a few hours and gather enough to make 1 or 2 meals for the whole family (some people freeze them but it's not the same). Pierogi with "forest blueberries" is the quintessential summer food. Some people make a business out of it, gather them whole day and sell them. But I've never seen them in malls, just in street markets and people selling them along the roads in season. I think they don't keep long enough for markets - you have to eat them by the day after the gathering. We also have the "american blueberries", they are farmed industrially, and some people have them in their gardens (my grandparents for example). They are nice, but nowhere close to the real thing. There's also 2 different species of wild forest berries, but I'm not sure how they are officially called in English (my grandmother called them "borówki" and "łochinie", but even in Poland it's regional names, most people don't know what a "łochinia" is :) ).
girvo 3y ago
The blueberries in my (south east Queensland) Australian garden are yellow on the inside and shockingly tasty.
- jazzabeanie 3y ago
  Where did you get the plant ?
  - girvo 3y ago
    Bunnings, funnily enough! I got two different varieties and planted them next to each other. Aside from watering them, I basically neglect them
ajuc 3y ago
There's nothing to change, it's obvious once you try both. The only advantage is that the American ones are easier to grow in your garden and easier to gather.
henrikschroder 3y ago
I spent yesterday picking a bunch, got maybe 4kg, gonna make jam today and bring home with me to the US. Absolutely superior. Worth the time and effort every time.
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
There's a reason all blueberry preserves, AFAIK, use the former. I can't imagine what the latter would taste like. Doesn't seem appealing. But I will also admit I have come across more flavorful batches of the latter, but still not preserve material.
wintermutestwin 3y ago
I was in Scandinavia recently and the strawberries there were much smaller than the typically massive American ones and the flavor was sweeter, the texture was less firm and the seeds were much less pronounced.

bensecure 3y ago

> (large, blue skin, but white and tasteless on the inside). That's just farmed blueberries. Wild blueberries are smaller, with blue and much more flavourful insides. It's an unfortunate reality with grocery stores that since people buy based on looks, farms will optimize for what looks good rather than what tastes good.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zdragnar 3y ago
They also optimize for transportation, which in the US tends to be very far indeed. Many kinds of fruit and veg are picked when they are just ripe, or not yet ripe and artificially ripened with ethylene or similar.
- joecool1029 3y ago
  The sad state of grocery store tomatoes is a testament to optimizing for transportation. The best tasting ones blemish/spoil easily. The tougher ones usually sold in stores just don't have much flavor.
Turskarama 3y ago
It's not even about optimizing for looks so much as size. A given blueberry bush will grow a certain _number_ of blueberries, while they are sold by weight. For that reason the farmer makes more money by getting the bush to grow the largest blueberries possible, and the larger ones tend to taste less good.
- scottlamb 3y ago
  Agreed, and so I'm a little skeptical of this article talking about tasty giant blueberries.
- o11c 3y ago
  From my experience (with homegrown berries) I would disagree; it's probably just that farmers have to optimize for "will not go bad on the way to the store". Maximum size and number of berries are determined by variety, and largely trade off against each other, though (probably climate dependent) some varieties just don't seem to do well at all. Actual size and sweetness is determined by how much water you give them and how long you leave them on the bush. Optimal picking time is determined by: go down and see when you think they're ready, then wait 2 more weeks before actually picking them; there should be just a handful starting to go bad. With some (but not all) varieties, you can also go by feel: if barely touching the berry makes it fall off, it's ready. If you only have a small number of bushes and they aren't fully enclosed, the birds will eat them all before they actually ripen. At commercial scale this isn't very significant since the area can't support that many birds for the rest of the summer.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Thick skin on a large blueberry is probably more palatable than thick skin on a small blueberry.
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    >sweetness is determined by how much water you give them and how long you leave them on the bush with wine grapes, sweetness (and other flavor qualities) depend on the sunlight times ratio of surface area of leaves to number of "berries". If the weather is great, you can grow more great grapes, but if the weather is poor you prune off half the fruit when it is still small and green (it's called the green harvest), and the remaining grapes come out higher quality, concentrating the sugar from more leaves. You might try it with a blueberry bush to see if those fruits taste better.
Alex3917 3y ago
> Wild blueberries are smaller, with blue and much more flavourful insides. If you remove all the excess water from farmed blueberries, the taste is about the same. You just need to aggressively sweat them. This obviously doesn’t work if you want to eat them fresh, but there are better berries for eating fresh anyway.
declan_roberts 3y ago
Not only farmed blueberries, but probably grown in South America and shipped to the USA.
calf 3y ago
Are wild blueberries = huckleberries? I read that huckleberries are delicious but could not be domesticated, many attempts were made but failed.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  Unfortunately the name "huckleberry" is applied to a number of berries across two genera. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry
henrikschroder 3y ago
> That's just farmed blueberries. No, it's a different species, vaccinium corymbosum. It's farmed, because it can be farmed, because of the bush size and growing conditions. Wild European blueberries, vaccinium myrtillus, can't be farmed. If we could, we would, but we can't, so instead we employ hordes of seasonal workers to go out in the forests and harvest them during the month-long season.
- jamincan 3y ago
  Myrtillus is the bilberry. High-bush blueberries (corymbosum) are the farmed variety in North America and while there are wild high-bush varieties, wild blueberries most commonly referring to the smaller, sweeter, low-bush varieties.
DropInIn 3y ago
Actually it's about ROI. Larger blueberries weigh more and so there is selective pressure and growing preferences which lead to large watery tasteless but heavy berries as the preference for crop outcomes. It's all about ROI.

FpUser 3y ago

I've eaten both and have no clear preference, love either. Blueberries are far from tasteless but yes the taste of bilberry is different and stronger.

Tiktaalik 3y ago

> tasteless on the inside Blueberries are enormously flavourful but I know what you mean in that occasionally I have come across blueberries that are seemingly grown for size and not taste, and seem bland and barely tart at all. (I've experienced the same with other fruit as well, such as strawberries) But yea if you think blue berries are tasteless you need to get some actual good blueberries. Unfortunately you've been eating the bad stuff!

Blackthorn 3y ago

There are many different types of American blueberries. The Reka and the Blue Ray, for example, couldn't be more different. (I strongly prefer the Blue Rays, but I'll gladly pick Rekas when the season opens.)

nkurz 3y ago
Reka is an odd choice as an example of an American blueberry. While it's increasingly common to grow here, it was actually developed in New Zealand. "Reka" is named for the Maori word for "sweet". Which is also a little ironic, since they are one of the more tart blueberries. I like them, though!

anthomtb 3y ago

American blueberries are the only ones I know. How would I, as resident of middle America, obtain these "bilberries"?

resolutebat 3y ago
It's sometimes called whortleberry or huckleberry in the US, although the latter in particular may refer to any of numerous berries. Frozen berries are exported from Europe though and can probably be found in specialist shops, the French in particular are fond of them (myrtilles). The texture is unfortunately lost but the taste does come through quite well.
- kzrdude 3y ago
  They are seasonal and picked wild so even in Sweden where the country is full of these berries, they are available fresh to buy for about a month per year. I think they are picked and exported frozen from Poland and Sweden among other places.
  - ajuc 3y ago
    In rural Poland it's a common seasonal activity to gather them in forests in July, you get whole family go to the forest for a few hours and gather enough to make 1 or 2 meals for the whole family (some people freeze them but it's not the same). Pierogi with "forest blueberries" is the quintessential summer food. Some people make a business out of it, gather them whole day and sell them. But I've never seen them in malls, just in street markets and people selling them along the roads in season. I think they don't keep long enough for markets - you have to eat them by the day after the gathering. We also have the "american blueberries", they are farmed industrially, and some people have them in their gardens (my grandparents for example). They are nice, but nowhere close to the real thing. There's also 2 different species of wild forest berries, but I'm not sure how they are officially called in English (my grandmother called them "borówki" and "łochinie", but even in Poland it's regional names, most people don't know what a "łochinia" is :) ).

girvo 3y ago

The blueberries in my (south east Queensland) Australian garden are yellow on the inside and shockingly tasty.

jazzabeanie 3y ago
Where did you get the plant ?
- girvo 3y ago
  Bunnings, funnily enough! I got two different varieties and planted them next to each other. Aside from watering them, I basically neglect them

ajuc 3y ago

There's nothing to change, it's obvious once you try both. The only advantage is that the American ones are easier to grow in your garden and easier to gather.

henrikschroder 3y ago

I spent yesterday picking a bunch, got maybe 4kg, gonna make jam today and bring home with me to the US. Absolutely superior. Worth the time and effort every time.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

There's a reason all blueberry preserves, AFAIK, use the former. I can't imagine what the latter would taste like. Doesn't seem appealing. But I will also admit I have come across more flavorful batches of the latter, but still not preserve material.

wintermutestwin 3y ago

I was in Scandinavia recently and the strawberries there were much smaller than the typically massive American ones and the flavor was sweeter, the texture was less firm and the seeds were much less pronounced.