Saturday, January 29, 2011

... smelt of elderberries

For Christmas i received this lovely pyramid of homemade jelly deliciousness from the lovely, lovely Rea.
Concord grape is my favorite, favorite, favorite jelly ever, so of course she sent one of those. I also enjoy raspberry jelly on biscuits so she sent some black raspberry, which i am anxious to compare to red raspberry jelly. I like blackberries, but have never them as jelly so i requested one of those. I can not even image pears as jelly so i requested that one as well. Then there is the elderberry...
Besides the Monty Python quote, i'm not sure i've ever encountered elderberries. Sure i've heard of elderberry wine, but i've never seen it either. Maybe i remember a candle once that was supposedly elderberry. No, wait... that was teaberry, now that i think of it. Anyhoo, i've never seen or smelled an elderberry, much less eaten one. In fact, i had no idea where they even grow; for all i knew they are highly regional, like loganberries or gooseberries or thimble berries or something.
Good news for me, though; where ever it is that elderberries grow, my BFF found some and jellified those puppies.
For a January new thing i decided to give the mysterious elderberry jelly a taste.
To really highlight the jelly, i warmed up a yummy, soft potato roll to be the base of this test
Ready, set, chew!
mmmmmmmm
So elderberries -at least in jelly form- taste like, well, berries. I mean, they have a totally unique taste, but you can tell that they are that type of fruit. I'd call the taste brighter than strawberries, sweeter than blueberries and rounder than raspberries. It was good. Different, but definitely good. But then came the real test: No jelly can be called a successful jelly in the Nikiverse unless it complements peanut butter; man, i loves me some peanut butter. How did elderberry fare in a PB&J? Delightful.
 In fact, the taste of the jelly really rose to the occasion when paired with the peanut butter.
Well done, Rea!
Thanks for the new taste.

3 comments:

Debbie said...

:) :) :)

I grew up visiting a friend's farm in northwest PA, and elderberries grew over the bank of their creek. I could walk down anytime I pleased in the summer and pick them off and eat them. They grow in bunches resembling the shape of the flower Queen Anne's Lace.

Anonymous said...

I have an elderberry juice mix from Ikea I haven't tried yet.

Rea said...

I'm glad you liked!!!