Blueberries are one of summer's greatest bounties. Plump, juicy and delightfully sweet-tart in flavor, they are equally perfect eaten by the freshly picked handful as dropped into pancakes or baked into light, airy muffins.
Blueberries are native to North America.
When explorers from Europe first arrived on the continent, they were quick to discover the low-growing blueberry bush, dense with tiny blue fruit. Though they were appreciated at the time for their unique flavor, blueberries were extremely labor-intensive to harvest because they grew hardly a foot off the ground. Wild or cultivated, blueberries are nutritional powerhouses. Not only are they packed with vitamin C and fiber, but recent studies rank blueberries over all other fruits and vegetables as a source of antioxidants that may help guard against cancer, heart disease and age-related illnesses. Cultivated berries are generally sold fresh and are usually available in abundance during the summer months.