For 4 people: 100 g flour, 2 eggs, 25 g vanilla sugar, 100 ml milk, 100 g cream, salt, 500 g blueberries, lemon juice, clarified butter, icing sugar.
Make a thick pancake batter from the flour, eggs, vanilla sugar, milk, cream and a pinch of salt. Leave to soak for several hours. Wash the berries and lightly mash some of them. Drizzle with a little lemon juice.
In a pan, preferably coated, 28 cm in diameter, melt clarified butter and pour in the batter. When the pancake starts to brown on the underside, after about 5 minutes, spread the blueberries on top and sprinkle with icing sugar. Cover the pan until the sugar glazes lightly on the berries, just briefly. Cut the pancake into quarters (or bake four cakes in a small pan) and serve while still warm. A racy noble-sweet wine, such as Muscat de Beaumes de Venises or Muscat de Rivesaltes, goes well with this. A Gewürztraminer with a clear residual sweetness is not bad with pancakes either; it doesn't have to be one of Madame Faller's precious Vendange tardives from Alsace.
Picking with feeling: Blueberries
Just a single genus of blueberries originally thrived in the Old World (cranberries and lingonberries are close relatives). By contrast, the diversity of blueberry varieties in North America is much greater, as is their popularity.
For example, that of the huckleberry. This original American blueberry, which resists all attempts at cultivation and whose hard, inedible seeds you inevitably spit out, certainly did not serve Mark Twain by chance as the namesake of his likeable hero.
The cultivated blueberries that have been encountered here for some time were imported from the USA and Canada. Even if they are not as aromatic as the wild ones, they are seedless, not mealy and there is more to them. It's much the same with wild cherries versus cultivated varieties. Years ago, when the Münkels started to reorganize their mixed farm for the future, the motto was: "Get away from everything everyone is doing". And with blueberries they could indeed make a name for themselves, today five hectares are planted with the plants in Mainbullau, situated at 450 m above the river valley. They are fenced in because of the fox tapeworm, the near forest edge offers wind protection.
Edelbert Münkel avoids the term "cultivated blueberries"; they are rather "Odenwald blueberries". Because of the berries' particularly comfortable, lean, acidic red sandstone weathered soils, they taste more aromatic than those from northern Germany. Starting next year, customers will be able to convince themselves of this by picking the berries themselves. This is quite convenient, because you hardly need to bend down, because the bushes are by far not as low as the forest blueberries that cover the ground.
When picking the berries - Duke is the name of the earliest and also the largest variety - a sure instinct is required. Because the gray-blue film adhering to the berries (it is called "beduftet"), it must be preserved; you also pay attention to it when buying. Edelbert Münkel therefore recommends picking the blue berries as if you were fondling your lover. Such tenderly traktierte berries have the best aroma, they keep ten to fourteen days and taste by the way well cooled best.
In the substantial blueberry pancake they represent one of the most beautiful summer table joys, be it as a sweet, juicy main course or as a dessert. If you can't get enough of them, you're going to need a booze. Among Münkel's fifteen different fruit brandies are rarities such as blackcurrant brandy, rosehip, sloe, wild sour cherry - and especially the noble and precious blueberry pomace.
Münkel's Berry Farm
Ortsstr. 16
63897 Miltenberg-Mainbullau (Main)
Tel.: 09371-2131, Fax: 65937.
Internet: <link>www.beerenhof.de
Email: <link>muenkel@beerenhof.de