Behold! The Mighty, Captivating, Breath-bating Cloudberry!
I actually didn’t realize that Cloudberries existed outside of song until just today. After going to the gym, I passed by the Swedish deli next door that also sells some stored goods grocery products and decided I had to pick up this one last thing for my Swedish grandma. Now, I’d seen lingonberry preserves there before many times (they also import them fresh from Sweden) but cloudberries I had not seen until now.
So, of course, the first thing I thought of was the “Cloudberries” song off the Super Furry Animals album known as Love Kraft. Seeing them live they performed this song and said a bit about how it was about berries that looked like clouds. I guess I thought that was just their nickname vs. an official name. I stood there stunned in the store just imagining Gruff Rhys (who is not Swedish but Welsh) and co. picking them (sort of like all those days I’ve daydreamed about Jens picking lingonberries in the forests of Sweden with a guitar around his back and singing songs about war protests and girls that are just a little nuts).
The guy who was working there, who is nice I might add and remembered me from when I was last in there to buy mustard for my dad, had not tasted cloudberries but he was nice enough to ask the owner who said that it tasted a little like a gooseberry, which I have problably eaten at some point and don’t have any traumatic memories of. Plus, how could something named cloudberries be bad?
When I came home, I did some research on this. I found this site
which informed:
Cloudberries are closely related to the raspberry and look like small golden blackberries, only their segments are much larger but fewer of them. They are often called salmonberries, but those are of a slightly different species.
mmm raspberries. mmmmm golden blackberries. Let’s stick to calling them cloudberries instead of salmonberries though, shall we? Last thing I want to be doing when I am eating something fruity is thinking about something fishy. I’d much rather think about the sky.
Cloudberries grow on boggy land in the cold northern climates of Scandinavia, Siberia, and Canada, as well as the Arctic Circle, and are one of the most delicious and costly of all berries because of their limited growing area
Oh great like I needed another reason to desperately long for Canada.
they are so valued in northern Scandinavia where Finland, Sweden, and Norway meet, the cloudberry has long been the cause of “cloudberry wars”. These otherwise peace-loving countries have been known to become quite territorial when it comes time to harvest this berry, causing the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to develop a special section just for cloudberry diplomacy.
woah hold on now! Let’s all calm down just a little. I’m sure the berry is very good but it can’t be worth going to war for or killing or death in general can it?
This must be some berry. If my grandma doesn’t open up the preserves while I am there, I am gonna buy myself a jar. I’ll let you know how good it is.
Oh and here is a picture that I did not take but found of the actual berry. I love this picture, which oddly enough looks like it was taken by someone in the department of High Energy Physics of Lund University in Sweden.
Last but not least, here’s some lyrics from the Super Furry Animals song I was just talking about.
Cloudberries1. humming bird
She came into the room
Didn’t know her name
How I danced inside
No one to confide
In the darkest winter
I made a sound like a long lost humming bird2. friends of friends
Took a CIRCLE of friends
To the village SQUARE
Old love TRIANGLES
Made us so aware
Of a distant era
But we’re still here
To sing as humming birds3. locust death march
(now playing: Super Furry Animals: Love Kraft)