This week I have taken an interest in learning about salal berries. During the weekend, I went for a walk and noticed that there are tons around the area. It is a broad-leaved evergreen shrub that is well known to the Pacific Northwest and it’s berries are a highly valued food source among the First Peoples of British Columbia’s coast. The berries were often dried to store for the winter. Another common way to prepare them was to cook them in wooden boxes over hot rocks. They were then mushed down to a jam-like consistency. Salal berry leaves can be used in flavouring for cooking and it can also be made into a medicinal poultice for cuts and wounds.

Salal Berry plants are related to arbutus trees and blueberries. In the early summer, this plant blooms with flowers that are pinkish white and are shaped like an urn. They grow in a row and contain a sweet nectar that you can taste if you pick the flower from the base where it meets the stem of the plant. Once the flowers have been pollinated, the berries will ripen in the mid-late summer months.