Chokecherries, Chokecherries, and More Chokecherries

Chokecherry trees are everywhere in Fairbanks. You can't walk a block without seeing at least one tree.  Many of them are volunteers, but most of them are intentional plantings as ornamental trees, which is actually how they were introduced to this area as they are not native.  We have four chokecherry trees in our yard.  Once we discovered what these trees were, we decided to learn how to tell when they're ripe and what to do with them once they are.  That wasn't too difficult as we've seen chokecherry products throughout our travels in the lower 48.  We'd even bought some chokecherry wine at one point.

The two resources most helpful to us was this article on Wildfoods.info and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Cooperative Extension.  I have found the UAF Cooperative Extension's publications on native foods to be invaluable resources when learning how to pick, clean, store, and utilize the abundant foods found throughout Alaska.

What's left on some of the upper branches of our big chokecherry tree.

Chokecherries are ready to pick at least 2 weeks after they turn jet black.  The longer you wait to pick them, the sweeter they will be (though I've learned they also start being eaten by birds and falling off the trees the longer you wait).  They will always have a tartness and make you pucker.  I, personally, am not a fan of them straight off the tree.  However, I have liked all chokecherry products I've tried.

Armed with this information and a ready supply in our own yard, I started picking these small black cherries. Between my husband and me we picked all the chokecherries we could reach in our yard, which was about 13 pounds, or two and a half gallons.  Most of them went into gallon bags in our freezer for later use.  I took a small portion of them, though, and extracted the juice.  We tried adding the juice to some homemade pancake syrup my husband had made when we ran out of store bought syrup.  It was nowhere near the same result as true chokecherry syrup.

The rest of the juice has sat in the refrigerator until today because we have been without storage space to make any jam, jelly, or syrup with it.  I finally broke down and bought a flat of jelly jars the other day.  This afternoon, my husband decided to make chokecherry jam.

Chokecherry jam

We currently have four pints cooling in the kitchen, and I have been picking more chokecherries, so I have a couple more gallons to go clean and freeze!