The Wonderful Wonderberry

Part of the excitement of growing your own food is trying out some plants you haven’t tasted before.  We all love to try new varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini’s, peppers, melons and other easy to grow vegetables to experience the range of different flavors available from our fresh, homegrown produce.  So it was a pleasant surprise to find a plant that could bowl me over with a flavor unlike anything else I had ever tasted.  It was the historic heirloom: ‘Wonderberry’.

Luther Burbank

I came across the Wonderberry in the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog for 2011 earlier this year when I was putting together my seed orders.  The first thing that caught my eye was the botanical name of Solanum burbankii.  It was related to the tomato, AND it was developed by plant breeder Luther Burbank who developed the ‘Burbank’ tomato, my all time favorite.  On researching the plant, it turned out that the Wonderberry was the center of a very heated debate in the early 1900’s after Burbank sold the rights to the seeds to nursery agent John Lewis Childs in 1909, who changed the name from Burbank’s ‘Sunberry’, to his own ‘Wonderberry’.  Childs then brashly promoted it with outlandish claims as:

"Luther Burbank's greatest and newest production. Fruit blue-black like an enormous rich blueberry.  Unsurpassed for eating ... in any form. The greatest garden fruit ever introduced .... Easiest plant in the world to grow, succeeding anywhere and yielding great masses of rich fruit."

Prominent American horticulturists and plant scientists from as far as Kew Gardens in England stated that it was nothing more than a common weed (Solanum nigrum) or black nightshade. And newspapers across the country had a field day trying to discredit both Childs and Burbank.  Finally, in the late 1950’s, the ‘Wonderberry’ was proven to be a separate species, with seed roots in Africa, but not until the plant had vanished from commerce for decades in the wake of the controversy.  It’s now making a comeback as more gardeners give it a try.

The front of the seed packet I received from Baker Creek had a painted drawing instead of a photograph, so I had little idea what the plant was going to look like in the garden.  I planted the seeds on May 1, 2011 and by the end of June they had grown to small bushes with tiny white flowers.  By the end of July they had grown up to 3 feet and needed to be staked.  I tasted the first shiny black berries about a week later. They were watery with a slight tomato taste and very little sweetness.  I was not impressed.  But just a little over two weeks later that all changed.  The berries were no longer shiny but had a dull cast to them.  The tops of the petals holding each berry were a light yellow color instead of green.  The flavor of the berries was much improved and they were sweeter.   It was time to pick.

I looked for recipes on the Internet and found the most common way the Wonderberry was being used was as a jam.  I printed a few recipes for reference then went out with a cottage cheese carton to pick all the berries.   

Picking wonderberrys is completely different from picking other berries.  If you grasp the individual berry and pull, you’ll likely end up with squashed berry innards all over your fingers.  Instead, you gently roll the berries with your fingers and they will come right off the stem and fall into your hand.  Place a container under a cluster and the berries readily drop in as you roll them.  There will still be green berries on most of the clusters.  These will not come off if you roll them, and need to be left on the plant to ripen.

By the time I had rolled most of the black berries off the stems, I had about 1 ¼ cups of fruit.  Once in the kitchen, I poured the berries onto a paper towel spread in a large roasting pan to weed out any tiny bugs that may have fallen in and to pick out any green berries and plant debris.  Then the berries went into a strainer where they were gently washed.

For the jam recipe I used orange peel as a thickener since it contains a natural pectin in the white pith.  The orange peel gives the jam a very slight orange flavor note.  Lemon peel can also be used.  

I made the jam as a “refrigerator” jam since there’s just not enough to bother processing in a hot water bath to store away—it will be eaten way too soon.  But you will still need a sterilized jar to pour the finished jam into.  You can process the jar for storage if you wish, following standard canning procedures.

Wonderberry Jam

1 cup wonderberrys (I used all of what I picked, a little over a cup)

1/3 cup sugar

Peel of ¼ of a medium orange, including the white pith.  Cut this into long thin strips about ¼ “ wide.

Half-pint mason jar with lid, sterilized in a hot water bath

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1. Place all ingredients in a small kettle and bring the heat up to medium. 

2. Stir well as berries begin breakdown. 

3. Turn heat up to a medium-high.

4. Press the berries with the back of your spoon as you stir to break them down.

5. Continue to stir and press the berries until the jam comes to a low boil.

6. Turn the heat down to simmer and let the jam continue to slowly cook for about 45 minutes or until the liquids have reduced by at least 1/3 of original amount.  Stir occasionally.

7. Turn off the heat.

8. Remove the orange peels with tongs and set aside to cool on a plate.  These are delicious once cooled down.

9. Remove the sterilized jar from the hot water bath and pour in the jam.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

 

Wonderberry Jam has sweetness similar to a grape jam but a decidedly different flavor.  It's absolutely delicious on an English muffin or a slice of toast with butter.  Spread on a generous spoonful of this dark amethyst colored jam and relish the WONDERful flavor of the Wonderberry!