Changing Values of Wild Berries in Estonian Households: Recollections from an Ethnographic Archive

Abstract

This article examines the historical importance of wild berries in the archival sources of the Estonian National Museum. The studied materials suggest that wild berries as food were insignificant for Estonian ethnologists-researchers as well as for correspondents due to disciplinary conventions and the ways of recollecting about food traditions. However, considering the Estonian remembrances in the context of international studies the consumption and gathering of wild berries for private use becomes a practice with diverse meanings. Wild fruits as food may have ambivalent values, which relate to socioeconomic factors, but likewise to continuities and discontinuities in individual and collective memory.

Keywords:

• food gathering
• wild berries
• food culture
• European ethnology
• ethnographic archives
• Estonia

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Diana Mincyte, Ulrike Plath, Ene Kõresaar, Kirsti Jõesalu, Susanne Österlund-Pötzsch, Yrsa Lindquist, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. We also thank Tiina Tael and Reet Ruusmann from the Estonian National Museum for their kind assistance.

Notes

1. Because wild fruit plants have multiple parallel names in English, we added Latin names in order to facilitate the identification of the species. The Estonian and Latin names are correlated according to the Index of Estonian Plant Names (see Eestikeelsete Taimenimede Andmebaas 2014) and to the international database The Plant List (see The Plant List). Because Latin plant names also have synonyms that knows a plant, it is necessary to clarify that Oxycoccus palustris is a Latin equivalent for the Vaccinium oxycoccos; the former name is more commonly used in Estonia for the common cranberry.

2. The majority of correspondents were of Estonian ethnic origin and only a few had a mixed Russian-Estonian ethnic background in 1983. In the 1930s, more than half of the correspondents were teachers, with farmers, artisans, officials, and others making up the rest. In 1937 and 1947, the majority of correspondents were rural inhabitants. In 1983, correspondents lived both in rural and urban areas, and in 2002 mainly in urban settings, having diverse occupational backgrounds. Prior to World War II, men dominated among the correspondents, whereas after the war mostly women contributed to the archive. In 1939, the correspondents’ network had 413 members and from the 1950s to the 1980s there were around 200 active members comprised mainly of retired people.

3. The historic-geographic method was developed in the 1870s by Finnish folklorists Julius and Kaarle Krohn and was adapted to ethnology in order to compare the regional variations of ethnographic phenomena and their changes in time. The method was especially useful for investigating details, similarities, and differences in material cultures (Goldberg 1984).

4. There have been other methods of collecting data in Estonian ethnology, including ethnographic fieldwork, biographical methods, and others.

5. Similarly, a Finnish questionnaire from 1970, Metsämarjat [Wild berries], includes 10 thematic blocks of questions, of which only one is related to consuming wild berries as food (the compiler was Riitta Ailonen; for the analysis of the responses, see Ailonen 1977).

6. The Latin names of the berries mentioned in the quote are Rubus saxatalis for stone bramble and Sorbus aucuparia for rowanberries. The former grows mainly in the coastal areas and islands, whereas the latter is common in all Estonia.

7. Drying, as a means for preserving berries, was mentioned only by a few correspondents, and this primarily for the purpose of making medicinal tea (cf. Kalle and Sõukand 2012). Adding dried berries to bread dough, or making berry-porridge was not remembered by the correspondents, although in eastern regions of Estonia berries were used this way (Moora 1981, pp. 568–569).

8. “Pood” was a unit of measurement used in Imperial Russia. One pood is approximately 1638 kg.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory); the Estonian Ministry of Education target-financed projects [SF0180049s09] and [SF0180157s08]; the institutional research funding [IUT3-2] and [IUT 34-32]; and the Estonian Science Foundation [grant numbers 8040 and 9419].

Notes on contributors

Ester Bardone

Ester Bardone is a researcher in ethnology at the Institute for Cultural Research and Fine Arts, University of Tartu, where she received a Ph.D. in ethnology. Her research interests include rural tourism, small-scale rural entrepreneurship, and heritage production in Estonia, and changes in Estonian food culture.

Piret Pungas-Kohv

Piret Pungas-Kohv recently completed her Ph.D. in human geography at the University of Tartu, where she is a coordinator of the Centre of Innovative Education. Her research focuses on place-making practices in various natural habitats. She also examines diverging meanings of specific places, specifically village swings and mires as significant loci in Estonian culture.