This Autumn nature has really pampered us in Finland with berries.. First a great harvest of blueberries and raspberries, and now lingonberries.

Lingonberries are firm red berries with quite strong acid taste. Some decades ago children in the country side would pick these berries for their school in the Autumn, so that the school cook could prepare food for them. Although my generation didn’t have to do this any more, I still remember the lingonberry mash that was served with the liver cassarole at school lunch.

A great snack or dessert is whipped porridge, ‘vispipuuro‘. That is a dish made traditionally from lingonberries, but you can also use cranberries or red currants, even strawberries. This is something every Finn has tasted for sure! You can try this easy recipe at home so you can leave the prepared convenience food to the stores:

Cook 7dl of water with 4dl of lingonberries for 5-15min. Season with 1dl of organic sugar and 1/4 tea spoon of salt. You can then either filter the lingonberry peel off with a collander, or puree it with a blender. Add 1,25 dl of semolina and let boil for 5-10min. Let the porridge cool down for a while and then whip it fluffy with mixer. Keep it in the fridge and serve as a snack or a dessert with milk.

If you are not a fan of porridge (which I bet you will become if you try the above recipe), why not try an arctic drink? This takes more preparation time, but it’s worth the wait and you can impress your friends with a home made liqueur. Layer of 3dl organic sugar and 1l of lingonberries into a bottle, and pour 5dl of vodka on top of them. Close the bottle, shake it and then store it in a dark place for a month. Shake the bottle every now and then. Filter the berries out before serving as a drink (you can use the lingonberries e.g. with caramel ice cream as a dessert).

So as you can see, lingonberries are a great berry for healthy morning smoothies and porridges to not so healthy desserts and drinks. The berries contains plenty of vitamin C, so your body will thank you for eating lingonberries!