One Ingredient: Summer Berries

Photo by Michael Piazza / Styled by Catrine Kelty
RECIPES BY OUR READERS

Each season, I reach out to our readers in search of five or six great recipes highlighting one seasonal ingredient or cooking method. We’ve done Sandwiches, Tomatoes, Brassicas, Alliums, Soups, Lamb and more. But not since our Eggs contest had I found such an array of both sweet and savory recipes until I called out for Summer Berries.

I picked through the many entries we received and chose the six recipes that were outside of my regular berry repetoire. I cooked them up, edited them, got clarification from their authors. And then I noticed something very interesting: Wholly coincidentally, we had a perfect summer meal of six courses featuring local berries at their peak, from appetizer to dessert, with a salad, main course, even drinks.

I hope you’ll fix this meal one night when the strawberries are lush, the blueberries juicy and sweet, and the raspberries and blackberries tart but tender. We wait so long in Massachusetts for a good berry harvest—why not go a little overboard and serve them in every dish?