Huckleberry Pie

My wife introduced me to huckleberries a long time ago. Well, the first summer after we met – which was, admittedly, a long time ago.

Actually, that’s not quite true – she didn’t introduce me to huckleberries, she introduced me to alpine huckleberries. The huckleberries I was used to are coastal – bright red, taste like not much of anything, are really tart and full of seeds. I eat them when I run in the forest. Grab a few as I go by… I couldn’t imagine making a pie from them.

I preferred blueberries, anyway.

But the pie. Let’s talk about pie. Betty is my mother-in-law and makes a mean huckleberry pie. And she does it the same way every time. (why mess with perfection, really?)

She has this ancient cookbook with the lemon juice pastry recipe (right next to the Lard Pastry recipe). She pulls an old ice cream bucket of huckleberries out of the freezer… Throws in a bit of this and a bit of that, some sugar, lemon, eye of newt…

And fires it in the oven, forgets to set the timer (true story) wanders back into the kitchen at exactly the right time, pulls the pie out.

Perfection. I think that this pie – the one from last night – is quite possibly the best huckleberry pie I have ever had. I have no idea what the difference was between it and the others I have had before, but this one was spectacular.

Made with love, and with a bit of practice.