Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera on July 27th, 2007. Click picture for larger view.
I have taken some pictures of the cloudberry plant in different stages of flowering and the final product as a tasteful berry (as you can see in the photo above).
The cloudberry plant (Rubus chamaemorus), or bakeapple as it is called some places, is slow growing sub-arctic specie that is a very important berry here in northern Norway. Cloudberries are mainly used as jam, with whipped cream, in cakes and some even make alcoholic drinks out of the berries.
When the berries are ripe there is a lot of competition among people to get a good harvest. There have even been reports of fighting 😉 Thus the price on cloudberries can be as high as 18-20$/kg.
The following pictures are of the cloudberry plant in different stages of flowering.
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera on June 14th, 2007. Click picture for larger view.
Notice the moth sitting on a leaf in this last picture.
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera on June 14th, 2007. Click picture for larger view.
Have anyone tasted cloudberries? It is not my favorite berry, but it is very nice with whipped cream and tons of sugar.
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Information about the pictures:
Camera: Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
Focal Length: 35 mm
Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 35mm F3.5 Macro
Location: Laupstad (Andørja), Troms in northern Norway
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Beautiful photos!
I’ve been to Norway though never seen (or tasted) or even HEARD of this before! Are they tart or sour? Very interesting.
Thanks for informing us!
Pam Hoffman
http://seminarlist.blogspot.com
great shots! they look like they’d taste quite tart. Are they like raspberries?
I really like that first pic its kind of a weird plant.
Ciao! I like a lot the photos you make..bravo!
http://www.lucianobove.blogspot.com
one of the pictures of the flower looks like that of strawberry!
but the fruit is real unknown to me!
Beautiful photos, especially the first one! Cloudberries are one of my favourite berries – hot cloudberry jam with vanilla ice cream for dessert or in soured milk for breakfast. Yummy!
Beautiful pictures, I will have to look into the E-500, any advice on it versus another.
Pam: They are somewhat sweet. Cloudberries got a very unique flavor.
Steve: Dunno how I should describe the taste, but it is not like raspberries 😉
Aradil: Will have to try that!
Kymerean: The E-500 is a very good camera and you get it pretty cheap right now as the newer E-510 just hit the marked.
But most DSLR cameras are good so it is hard to choose
deilige cloudberries 😉
hilsen cathrine, Moss
Cloudberry good shot!
Was in Norway the first2 weeks of August on the Hardangervidda. Got back Sunday.
Lots of cloudberry flowers on mossy clumps in swampy upland areas, and a few berries ripening already. We were told by a Norwegian that there probably wouldn’t be that many this year because of the bad weather earlier on. A very few were already ripe. Yes, they need a bit of sugar. The jam must be excellent with cream – haven’t tried it yet; we bought a big tub of it, plus a Norwegian waffle mixture, so we’ll have a good tea time with it at some point. Lots of what are called in English, ‘Cowberries’ which look like and are called in German, ‘Preiselbeere’ (Cranberries) – maybe it’s a local English name for the Scottish variety which grows on some Scottish moors as well.
There were also masses of small black berries growing on low, rather spiky leaved bushes. They weren’t juniper, but if anyone here has a clue what they might have been I’d be grateful to know.
Ps I don’t mean Blueberries (Bilberries) of which there were plenty, or even the blue, slightly elongated berries with the pale green waxy leaves. Annoying when one doesn’t have a book on the local flora. Any ideas?
Hi fran
Yeah they have had pretty terrible weather in the south of Norway with lots of rain, but here in the north it has been mostly sunny so the cloudberry harvest seem to be good this year.
I believe the black berries you saw are called crowberries. I actually have a shot of them. Check it out here: http://blog.thomaslaupstad.com/2007/04/30/macro-photo-of-crowberry-and-some-evergreen-shrubs/
Thanks, Thomas – much appreciated. I’m sure that’s what they were. I tried the juice of one, feeling pretty sure they weren’t poisonous – but it didn’t taste of much. I thought they might be good as wine, too. Fascinating. Any idea what the other berries might have been? The longer blueish ones?
The plant life up there is so rich. Saw some flowers that I knew as well as lots that I didn’t. The small white, seven-petalled, star-like flowers which grow in grass and in spagnum mossy and wet areas were beautiful. Do you know what they’re called?
I was thrilled to find real angelica growing wild in Norway. I’ve never found it in the wild before…
Great pictures. The sunset on Aug 9th could win you a few prizes, I’m sure…
Frances:
Maybe it was Norther Bilberry? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccinium_uliginosum
Never heard of that berry being harvested.
Yeah, angelica is growing everywhere here 🙂
No cloudberries this year. I live in Jämtland, Sweden. So far I have found only 1 (!) dl. I´m not going to look for them anymore. I hope next year will be a better cloudberry year..
Beautiful photos, Thomas!
I love your photos and will return ofen.So glad to have found your blog.
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Cloudberries are the most amazing fruit on this planet. My grandma in norway would crush them and put them in the middle of here cakes or she would make a fresh cream to top them off with,HEAVENLY! My cousins and I would go into the forest fend off trolls that gaurded the cloudberry boggs. We were 8, what can I say, It was the greatest fun ever. We also would paint our faces with squished bluberries and chase each other around. My 2 times of living in Norway are the best memories ever! Thanks Grandma Ingrid!
These look like they would taste really good where can I get them from a supermarket, grocery store?
You can get cloudberry preserves at IKEA stores and it is the same as what I grew up with in Newfoundland (where we call this fruit a bakeapple) it is a delicacy and like some of the other posts mention it can be quite expensive. IKEA sells decent sized jars for around $5 US if I’m not mistaken. Well worth it, no question!!!!
We grow these berries in Flanders/belgium !
Leo Flandriae
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Fran, they could have been what we call Oregon Grape. Maybe google a picture of Oregon Grapes to see. Nobody eats them…not even Oregonians ;). They’re wild in Oregon. Some people put them in their yards for decoration.