I’ve eaten guinea pig in Peru, made my own Tom Yum soup in Thailand, and had Pozole off the street in Mexico City.
The more exotic, the more local on the menu, the greater the chance I will order it. In Whitefish, Montana ordering local means eating huckleberries. In just 4 days on the Flathead I downed huckleberry lemonade, huckleberry cobbler, wild huckleberry wheat ale, baked huckleberry french toast and huckleberry preserve.
They put the huckleberries in everything. From jelly to pancakes, tea to lotions, syrup to muffins.
The taste of the berry is comparable to blueberries, but just a smidge more sweet. It’s that sweetness that elevates their taste and the passion for them and makes them a calling card for Glacier National Park and the Whitefish area. Huckleberries ripen in August (around the same time as blueberries) and if you decide to hike into the mountains to pick some, you’ll have to fend off the grizzlies as the berry is a favorite of the bears.
The Huckleberry Patch is one of the original shops in the valley, it’s been open since 1949 and features wall upon wall of purple hewed jars showing off the berry.
If you do local when you travel, you’ll have huckleberries when you visit Whitefish, Montana.
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Also worth noting, Whitefish has an annual Huckleberry Festival in mid-August, and in 2011 is August 12 to 14.
There’s a parade, Miss Huckleberry pageant, elk bugling contest, huckleberry dessert contest, and a ride exactly like the Zipper, but made entirely of huckleberry preserve.
Ok, there’s no huckleberry Zipper. But the rest is totally true. Including the elk bugling contest.
Awesome. Thank you Forrest.
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