Mark Twain Forum Reviews: The Huckleberry Cookbook by Stephanie & Alex Hester

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The Huckleberry Cookbook. By Alex & Stephanie Hester. TwoDot, 2017. Second Edition. Pp. 158. Hardcover $19.95. ISBN 978-1-4930-2836-8. Ebook. ISBN 978-1-4930-2837-5.

Huck Finn’s name signifies an insignificant (huckleberry) Irish child (Finn). The stereotypical Irishman of the nineteenth century was a drunkard and thief, and Irish immigrants frequently were met by signs in shop windows reading “No Irish Need Apply.” Although Irish women could get jobs as housekeepers, Irish males were more often hired as day laborers and rarely hired as butlers or allowed to work in a home; African-American males were more often hired as house-servants than Irish-American males. If African-Americans occupied the bottom rung of the social ladder during and after slavery, Irish-Americans, who flooded into the country in the 1840s to escape the cruelties of British rule and forced starvation (not famine), were only one rung up the ladder – which bred resentment and racism. Huck was the son of Pap Finn, the town drunk, an Irishman who need not apply, nor should his son.

None of this is mentioned in this wonderful cookbook. In fact there is no mention of Mark Twain at all even though every page glorifies huckleberries. The introduction credits Henry David Thoreau as the first American writer to seriously study the huckleberry, tracing them back to 1615 when explorer Samuel de Champlain noted that Native Americans harvested them. Next comes Captain William Clark (of Lewis & Clark fame) who describes them in 1806. They were used for food, for dyes, and as medicine. They were mixed with meats, and also mashed and dried and made into cakes. Early settlers took their lead from Native Americans and likewise made good use of them. During the Great Depression “huckleberry camps” attracted eager pickers, especially in the northwest, and by 1937 the huckleberry industry had developed enough to require regulation.

Not all huckleberries are the same; there are three dozen species of huckleberries in North America, and they have been mistaken for blueberries, and called by other names: hurtleberries, bilberries, dewberries, and whortleberries. Grizzly bears love them, and no wonder: the aroma of huckleberries can permeate a plastic bag (NB: double bag them when freezing them for storage). In some regions huckleberry bushes grow barely two feet high, but in other climates they grow over five feet tall. They tend to grow best on sloping ground, but thrive at both lower elevations and at 6,500 feet. Most huckleberries are smaller than blueberries, and unlike blueberries they tend to grow further apart on the bush rather than in clumps like blueberries. Anyone who has tasted fresh huckleberries and fresh blueberries knows that huckleberries will win any flavor contest hands down. Huckleberries have a balanced (not too sweet, not too sour) lingering taste and a complex texture that makes blueberries seem dull in comparison. There is nothing insignificant about huckleberries.

…continue reading Kevin Mac Donnell’s review on the Mark Twain Forum.

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