The golden berry – Molte

I found a handful of these berries today, the Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus). That is, I found a handful that was ripe, and thousands that was not quite ready. Within a few days now the Norwegian mountains will swarm with people. They go there to pick what we call “the gold of the mountains”. Many foreigners who taste this don’t always like it that much. For us it is very valuable. It is a delicacy that people eat for dessert on Christmas Eve, or at other occasions or parties. In earlier days this was an important source of vitamin c, since there isn’t much fruit and vegetables that grows this far north. If you cross the Arctic cirkcle it is only the locals that can harvest the cloudberries. We call it molte. It is red when it is almost ripe, then it turns golden.
There are more photos of the wild edible berries in Scandinavia in my photo gallery.

My dog looks as if he his also looking for berries, but he was more interested to smell who had been there before, and it was probably a hare.