New at The Source

These are dried Lingonberries. I first saw them in a street market in Lahti, Finland in 2012 where they looked like red currants.

Lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) are to Scandinavians what blackberries are to Aussies and Americans – an abundant wild fruit free for the taking by anyone with a basket, a harvesting fork, and the patience to pick through and clean their harvest.

Produced by low, evergreen shrubs throughout Scandinavia's forests, the tart red berries are much smaller and juicier than their distant cousin, the cranberry.

Bursting with natural preservatives and pectin, lingonberries were invaluable to earlier generations of Scandinavians, for they could be kept for months at room temperature simply by placing them in jars of water or by stirring the raw berries with a small amount of sugar to make an easy lingonberry jam (no cooking required).