I picked up a quart of fresh blueberries yesterday, and the Mrs. and I already finished them off.
Upon reflection however, both of us decided that while blueberries did have a certain recognizable flavor, it was not nearly so distinct as that of most other fruits, such as bananas, oranges, grapes, strawberries, etc.
I went so far as to say that I wasn’t sure I could identify them on a blind taste testing, save that the best ones were both sweet and tart, like the candy. The Mrs. disagreed, saying she could identify a discrete flavor that she associated only with that particular fruit.
What say you, dopers? Are you able to identify the ‘blueberry’ flavor?
Always I can identify the flavor that is blueberry. And the food chemists are pretty good at fooling me when they mix up a batch of esters and purple food coloring and apply them to tiny chunks of apple, too.
I don’t know. I was just about to click yes, but after reading your “blind taste testing” comment I thought about it further. Blindfolded, I think I might actually have a hard time determining any distinct flavour if the size and texture were removed from the equation.
What I wonder about, though… At a local festival a few years back, I bought a bottle of huckleberry-flavored pop (for those not familiar with them, huckleberries are basically wild blueberries). Looking at the ingredients, it was entirely artificially-flavored. So I have to ask: Is there really any difference between artificial huckleberry flavor and artificial blueberry flavor?
Domesticated blueberries, not so much; I actually find them unpleasant and mushy most of the time and don’t eat them.
But wild blueberries are another matter. They’ve got a very particular, strong flavor that I love.
And when they’re baked into a pie, they’re absolutely unmistakable.
A friend of mine thought he hated blueberries. But he was over at my house once when I made a pie from berries I’d picked up along the Blue Ridge Parkway. One bite was enough to convert him: now, like me, he just hates domesticated blueberries.
I"m glad I found this thread. I just ate my first fresh blueberry in a really long while. And I thought, “this doesn’t taste like anything.” So I asked a friend, and she said that she puts sugar on them so they taste like sugar.
But other than some pulpiness on the inside and some tart on the outside, it doesn’t have much taste to me.
Blueberry flavoring (the fake stuff) has a distinctive flavor, but fresh blueberries themselves don’t taste like that to me. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who feels like that.
I think you hit it on the nail. It CAN be distinctive but not always. I think blueberries can be overpowered, a bit like pears. One of my favourite things is to mix raspberries and blueberries and you need about 2/3 blueberries to every 1/3 of raspberries to get a decent flavour mix
Second this. Wild blueberries are yummy, with a distinctive flavour. Cultivated blueberries have very little flavour, no acidity, and just taste watery. The same goes for raspberries.
Blueberries definitely have a very distinctive flavor to me. My usual breakfast is fresh blueberries in plain unflavored yogurt, and it’s very, very different from the taste of plain yogurt alone.
Blueberries taste like serviceberries or vice-versa. They’re good. The most distinctively flavored fruit to me are black raspberries. They don’t taste like red raspberries or blackberries at all. The lack of black raspberries 'round here almost makes me want to move back to Hoosierland!
Blueberries are one of my favorite fruits, and definitely have a distinct flavor. But this year they haven’t been consistent. I’ve gotten some that were somewhat tart, and others very sweet.
I am extremely biased toward blueberries from NJ, which was instilled in me at a young age by my mother (who is from NJ). They’re consistently the most sweet and miles better than Florida, North Carolina, or Michigan blueberries, and they make the best pies.