We have found there are an impressive number of wild huckleberry products available for purchase in the stores. There may be even more products available on the Internet. Reverend Simonik’s Huckleberry Haus Cookbook includes almost 200 recipes, many of which could undoubtedly be packaged for sale. Perhaps most if not all of the commercially available wild huckleberry products are using his recipes or variations on them. Wild huckleberries, we have learned, are very popular with gourmet food devotees. The wild huckleberries and wild huckleberry products we know about have sweetened many lives.
Some wild huckleberry products cannot be found on the Internet. For example, Mary Lou’s Homemade Ice Creams in Spokane, Washington does not appear (at this writing) to have a Web site. But they had a booth in Spokane’s 2007 Pig Out In the Park festival and we tried their huckleberry ice cream. It was incredible (and as blue or purple as the legendary Huckleberry Hound himself). The ice cream wasn’t just colored and flavored — there were real wild huckleberries in it.
You may find honeys and syrups in a few places that are prepared for very small enterprises. We try to buy products that list the huckleberries as the main ingredient but we’re not sure if all these local-made products conform to Food and Drug Administration standards. Many of the products claim to be “home made” (and some of the Web sites do, too).
You may find some wild huckleberry products on eBay. The most common products seem to include huckleberry jam, huckleberry preserves, huckleberry syrup, huckleberry honey, and huckleberry candies. We especially liked some huckleberry chocolate liquors we found.
Since the manufacture of wild huckleberry products is not regulated the quality of the foods may vary from vendor to vendor. Remember that home made foods may taste better but they are also less likely to share the consistency and shelf life of commercially produced foods. While some people see that as an advantage, you may notice different qualities in taste because source patches vary.
In our experience so far, the best wild huckleberry products have emphasized the huckleberries over sugar and pectin. We are not ruling out more commercial processes but so far we’ve been happy. The lack of additives in wild huckleberry products certainly appeals to people who are tired of not being able to pronounce the names of the ingredients in their foods.