Amelanchier alnifolia |
The berries themselves are red and firm when not yet ripe, and become dark purple and soft when they are ripe. The inner flesh is whitish and there are a few dark seeds, but the seeds are not large or hard enough to bother you much when eating them. The berries have a very pleasant, slightly sweet flavor. They can almost be called juicy, but it is more like a berry full of apple sauce in consistency and they taste like apple sauce with a bit of grape flavor mixed in. My mouth was somewhat dry after eating them, so they may have a slightly astringent property, which I didn't notice at all while eating them.
When I pick a bunch of these, I can keep them in the fridge for a few weeks, and use them in the same way I would use blueberries.
When I pick a gallon or more, which is not hard to do if you find an area with lots of trees, there are a variety of ways to preserve them. They make a very good jam if you simply blend them up with a food processor. They have a lot of pectin, and are already jelled up when you remove the mass from the foot processor. But it doesn't hurt to add a small amount of sugar and water, and boil them for a few minutes to make them more preservable. I used about 2 cups of berries, 1/4 cup of water, and 3 tablespoons of sugar, and boiled for 5-10 minutes, to get a very good flavored jam. For long term storage, you might want to add a little lemon juice for acidity and process the jars in a boiling water bath to make sure all the germs are dead.
Another good way to preserve serviceberries is as fruit leather. You can simply crush them and spread them on a fruit drying sheet. You can also use the jam recipe above, and spread that on the fruit drying sheet. The extra sugar-water and boiling makes it more pliable, so the result was a smoother leather without and breaks. Also, I thought the fruit lost some of its sweetness while drying, so I liked restoring that with a little sugar. The plain fruit leather developed a lot of cracks from shrinkage while drying, but some of my family preferred its crunchier texture over the jam-style leather. You may want to try both methods to see which you prefer.
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