Making use of manzanita berries

Manzanita berries are another often ignored food in parts of the west USA.

They will be dry on the plant when they're fully ripe, which is convenient since you can just store them as is for a long time after picking.  The berries are sweet, tart, slightly tannic.  I pick them into a belt-bucket (a bucket hanging in front of me from a belt) so I have both hands free.  The berries come of the plant extremely easily when ripe.  Some twigs and leaves will get in the bucket.

They have very tough seeds.  It's probably safe to swallow seeds whole, I do it and the bear does it.  But for eating lots of them, it would be a lot of big seeds.  

I make manzanita "sugar" by grinding the whole berries in a cheap blender with dull blades (so as not to break the seeds, and not to damage a sharp quality blender).  Then sift the powder from the seeds and pieces of berry that remain.  I don't worry about the twigs and leaves and bits of dried flower, there will be that debris mixed in and it doesn't ruin it.  It would be a lot of work to separate everything from just the pure berries by hand.

You'll get maybe 3-4x as much of the seeds and chunks of berry as the powder - this stuff is good too, I just make tea or "cider" with it.  Say 1/4 or 1/2 cup ground manzanita berries with ~2 cups hot water, and then pour the liquid through a strainer into mug.  (Any ratio is fine just depends how strong flavor you want.)  

The powder is good for so many things.  I'll put it in anything that I bake, in oatmeal, pancakes, etc.  You can make nice little cakes out of it with just 1/2 cup manzanita sugar and 1 egg and a pinch of salt, mix it up and fry in a pan.  

I used to pick these all the time.  I assumed they were inedible to humans and fed them to animals along my walks.

When I worked in the Laguna mountains at an environmental ed camp, we learned and taught about manzanitas being a key native peoples’ apothecary plant. The berries are delicious and do make a great tea. It is so tasty one might come to realize the hard way they can be a cathartic laxative in high enough dosage. They are apparently good for many other GI ailments too. The leaves are a natural antiseptic, and chewing them will help heal mouth sores and upper respiratory ailments. They will also make a person produce a very funny face, as they are very bitter, reminiscent of campho-phenique cold sore medication. The leaves can also make a decent toothbrush substitute in a backpacking pinch. Of course, take care when trusting anyone on the internet telling you to put something novel in your mouth!

I have read about Manzantia from Louis Lamour books.

Unfortunately Mr google says :

one species of manzanita, the Pointleaf Manzanita (Arctostaphylos pungens), is native to Texas, specifically found in the Chisos Mountains of Jeff Davis County.

This is not too close to me or other Texans ...

Fascinating: I'd not heard of manzanitas and bearberries before (the latter occur in a suitable ring around the northern polar region, apparently).

I've found an interesting compendium of known Indigenous uses for manzanita berries - apparently known also as, for example, "pyah" in Yurok: https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~yurok/lexicon.php - here:

https://www.suddenoakdeath.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/Tribal/Tribal_uses_for_Common_Manzanita.pdf

Anne Miller wrote:I have read about Manzantia from Louis Lamour books.

Unfortunately Mr google says :

one species of manzanita, the Pointleaf Manzanita (Arctostaphylos pungens), is native to Texas, specifically found in the Chisos Mountains of Jeff Davis County.

This is not too close to me or other Texans ...

The manzanita berry may be native to Texas, but thanks to modern shipping I've found them in other states.  i believe they can be found throughout the south and midwest now.