When you think about it, the only blue food we consume is blueberries. Furthermore, food psychologists claim that other than blueberries, blue foods are unappetizing.

Blue icing is never a favorite request for birthday cakes. Blue mashed potatoes don't exist and blue chicken or whipped cream simply does not sound good at all.

On the positive side, blueberries are one of nature’s gifts to our appetites. And, contemporary knowledge has suggested that the mighty blueberry is extremely good for us.

As a child, blueberry season meant a trip to a secluded site in the woods, a clearing of land with neat rows of the bushes that yielded the blue fruits. With small buckets in hand, we would strip the branches of the blue clusters, always managing to pop a few in my mouth as the picking progressed. The prize was a field of cultivated bushes that had fruit the size of the end of your thumb. It made filling the buckets a task of little effort.

As an adult living in the Adirondacks, blueberries were a wild fruit, savored on hikes and woodsy explorations. Short bushes, no more than 12 to 14 inches tall, clustered on shallow hillsides near lakes.

The tiny, very dark blue berries are the sweetest in the world, by far. Time consuming to harvest, they reward with their precious flavor.

In the kitchen, blueberries are a treat to savor. Scattered over a fruit salad, they should always be the last ingredients, splashed as a garnish. Maple syrup, warmed, is best when a handful of blueberries are tossed inside to be eventually slathered over a tall stack of hot cakes.

I still have vivid and tantalizing memories of a blueberry upside-down cake of years ago that was always host to a diminutive scoop of the best vanilla ice cream one could buy.