Currants – The Alaskan Sour Cherry

We were still up in Palmer neck deep in wedding prep when a friend texted me.

“Would you like to pick currants? My neighbor has picked all she wants and there is still a lot left on her bushes. They’re free for the taking!”

“Um, YES!! Absolutely we want some currants.”

“Ok,” she said. “Just text me before you get here so I can let her know you’re coming.”

The wedding was over and we packed up on Monday, ready to head on home. My friend lives in Sterling, an hour and a half from our place, but right on the way home as we traveled back.

We made sure we took a bunch of quart ziplock bags to put currants in and got on the road.

“We’re on our way!” I told my friend.

I had learned a lot from other berry picking excursions and did not have my expectations very high. A gallon or two of berries would be great. I know how picking can go with three young children. Besides, we had been driving four hours and had another hour and a half to go. A quick look at the clock showed that it was after five pm. Nope. Not much time to devote to berry picking, but we’d get what we could and be happy for it.

When we got there we had to open the gate to a tall moose fence to be able to drive into the lane. There was a small orchard on one side of the lane and berry bushes on the other. We collected our bags and our children, stopped to change a diaper, and headed out to pick.

The bushes were loaded with berries! Large currants hung in juicy clusters just begging to be picked.

Oscar and Jasmine wasted no time standing around. They immediately started picking and eating currants as fast as they could. Gabe wanted to help, so we gave him a bag to fill and he did great.

Andy and I filled quart bags as quickly as we could. We didn’t bother to pick individual berries, just pulled off the clusters in handfuls knowing we could always stem them later at home.

After filling another quart bag I went to get another one and they were all full! Um…I thought we had brought plenty! A quick search in our vehicle for something to put more berries in revealed a 3 gallon pot we had taken up to the wedding to use for the soup. Aha!

But it didn’t take long before that was also filled.

Andy looked at the pile of ziplock bags and the big pot. “I think we might have enough,” he said.

We started counting the bags. Nine gallons of berries! We looked at the clock. We had picked them all in one hour! Gabe picked half a gallon all by himself. Now that’s what I call enjoyable and profitable berry picking!

We loaded up our berries and children and headed down the road toward home.

After a lot of stemming (Thank you Dad and Mama for all the help!) we put 24 bags of berries in the freezer and canned 17 quart of currant pie filling. Best of all we had currant pie for supper with vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm-hmmm!! It tastes a lot like the Eastern sour cherry pie.