Another new fruit! I found these in our local Frugt og Grønt shop at the weekend, in addition to the epically wonderful selection of plums, pears and apples there is at the moment. I didn't recognize them, so I bought some.
Little round red berries. Labelled tyttebær. Without any green parts: just the berries. They look a bit like red blueberries. Or tiny round cranberries. S knew them when I got home: Preiselbeere. I recognized the name. He thought cranberry, but I knew that is tranebær, not tyttebær. And besides, these berries aren't the right shape / size to be cranberries. Then he got it: wild cranberries? Lingonberries! I knew the name in English also, but I never had them fresh before, only in jam (probably from IKEA). So, a Nordic thing perhaps.
They are tart. Very tart. I put some in a crumble with huge apples I'd also got from Frugt og Grønt. This was good, but they didn't explode like the bigger cranberries do, so the tartness remained concentrated in the little berries and wasn't diluted by apple. OK, but the blackberry one I made alongside was better - blackberry and apple is hard to beat!
The rest I mixed into a pan of freshly-cooked bulghur. This was better. The berries cooked quickly in the warm wheat, since they are tiny. And that softened their tartness. I mixed more in: some parsley and olive oil and so forth. I liked them better like this. Made me think of barberries in Iranian rice.