Berries and Jam. The Sweet Aroma of an Alaskan Autumn
Do certain smells trigger your childhood memories?
This time of year, I especially miss Alaska. I know the poplars will be golden in the changing light, the salmon will be running red, and I swear I caught a whiff of the musky wine-like smell of highbush cranberries.
Late summer still smells like berries to me, their aroma released during marathons of jelly making. Our job, as young kids in Alaska, was to pick them, and my mother would make the jelly.
My favorite jam was wild raspberries. I can picture them simmering, yielding delectable foam bubbling up on top. My sister and I lurked, barely waiting for it to cool enough to lick from spoons.
The few strawberries we found, were mixed with the sharp tang of rhubarb to extend the jam hoarded for winter.
And most of all, I remember the highbush cranberries.
Few people in the world get to taste these unique fruits, which only grow in northern latitudes. While commonly called a cranberry, it is actually Viburnum edule.
It is often confused with Viburnum opulus var. americanum, one of many ornamental shrubs in the family.
This berry grows over most of Alaska, south of the Arctic Circle, though it is rare in Southeastern Alaska. It is not as tasty as the Lowbush Cranberry, which is much more similar to the berry used for commercial sauces.
I liked picking it, not for its taste, but because it grows in small clusters of a few berries, making it easy to fill a bucket. Plus, since it’s so tart, I never saw black bears gobbling up the berries as they love to do with raspberries.
Autumn colors their leaves crimson, and each step on the spongy ground releases a scent I’ve smelled nowhere else but an Alaskan forest.
“It is esteemed very highly or not at all.”
I have the original recipes my mother used for jelly and jam. The book is titled The Alaskan Camp Cook: trail & kitchen-tested recipes of Alaska’s guides (and their wives!) and has long ago lost its binding, but the pages are still intact.
The section on highbush cranberries states, “In both flavor and odor the highbush cranberry is different from anything else — strongly reminiscent of the deep wilderness, the perfect complement to game meats — and it is esteemed very highly or not at all.”
Looking at the recipes here, I wish she’d tried the one for Highbush Cranberry Wine, instead of Cranberry Jelly. On a peanut butter sandwich, trust me. Not good.
Even worse, somehow, she invented a recipe that combined the cranberries with bananas for the worse jelly ever made, I kid you not. When I opened my lunch box and found that sandwich, I yearned for a moose roast sandwich with mustard instead.
Woodstove smoke and chainsaws belong to autumn, too.
Scientists now understand those scent molecules travel to the olfactory bulbs in the brain. There the information is transferred to the tiny area of the brain known as the amygdala, where emotions are processed and on to the nearby hippocampus where memories are stored. This is the reason why scent triggers memory more quickly than any other input.
This is why memories triggered by scents as opposed to other senses are “experienced as more emotional and more evocative,” said Rachel Herz, an adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University in Rhode Island and author of the book “The Scent of Desire”.
I treasure my childhood berry and jelly memories — especially when paired with the thought of the fresh bread, my mother would occasionally produce.
But since I’m here in Texas, I’ll content myself with filling my kitchen with the smell of peach jam, and by golly, Jalapeno jelly is darn tasty, too.
If you happen to live where highbush cranberries grow, here’s a recipe for you.
Highbush Cranberry Jelly
Add 3 cups water to 2 cups berries, simmer for about 5 minutes, mashing berries while they simmer, and strain through a jelly bag.
Pour the juice int a large kettle and stir in 7 cups of sugar. Bring to a rapid boil and stir in 4 ounces of liquid pectin.
Return to a full rolling boil, and allow to boil for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and skim the foam off the top.
*Pour quickly into clean jars and seal with a layer of hot paraffin, at once.
NOTE: This is what the recipe says, and it’s how my mom preserved all the jelly she made. However, you may choose to follow modern water-bath canning instructions.