I love blueberries. Love. Love Love. Not like. Not prefer. Not fancy. Love!!!

I love foods that have blueberries in them. Blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins, blueberry scones. When I make oatmeal, I put the blueberries in right at the end, so they get warm but not cooked. Then you get a little juice with every spoonful. When I make French toast, I do something similar, pan frying two batter-soaked slices of bread and then, just before they’re done, stacking them with a healthy handful of blueberries in between. I love the juicy pop of blueberries in salads and the feel of them rolling on my tongue. Recently, I’ve taken to replacing the raisins in our breakfast cookies with blueberries. Gives ‘em a little more moisture, a little more zipadeedoodah!

I grew up in South Jersey, a stone’s throw from Hammonton, the blueberry capital of the world (according to the Hammonton Chamber of Commerce). Driving east on the Atlantic City Expressway bound for the Shore Points, you pass field after glorious field. Most of South Jersey is basically a big sand wash leftover from the last Ice Age—loose, acidic glacial till, perfect for growing blueberries. Years ago, I worked with Hmong refugees, US allies who came to America from Laos after the Vietnam War. I interviewed a family who first settled in the Philadelphia area before resettling with relatives in Wisconsin. They described finding temporary work picking blueberries in those Hammonton fields. That sounds like a long day. I think work like that might cut into the love pretty quickly. I mean, we only have five small blueberry bushes in our garden and, even though I greedily grab each and every ripe berry, I sometimes find myself being grateful we don’t have more.

In Alaska’s Denali Park, I once came across fields and fields of ripe berries in mid-August growing wild on the tundra. The midnight sun made them big and fat. You could pick and pick and pick, as many as you could eat, as many as you could carry. But the whole time I was picking, I had one eye watching out for grizzly bears. They like blueberries too. And on the tundra, there aren’t many trees tall enough to get you out of reach of a grizzly who might also enjoy two slices of you with a blueberry garnish.

Of course, blueberries are also a superfood. Not that I know what that means … exactly. I know that it’s in the book of superfoods that we keep in the kitchen with the cookbooks. I’ve never actually read the book, but I’ve thumbed through the super pictures of the superfoods and read a few of the captions. I think it has something to do with antioxidants, those magical little buggers that fortify cells, lower bad cholesterol, help your blood pressure, inhibit the growth of some cancers, spellcheck your documents, vacuum your dust bunnies, balance your checkbook, weed your garden, and fish the hair balls out of the shower drain.

I wonder if Superman ate a lot of super blueberries. He’s got the blue leotard. But it’s not really blueberry blue, more like sky blue, probably for camouflage for when he’s flying after bad guys. They don’t see him coming. Blueberry blue is more like Penn State blue, not to be confused with Navy blue or Carolina blue. Don’t make that mistake! Some people are fanatical about their Pantone colors.

Blueberries are among the sparsely populated blue foods. The first on that short list that springs readily to mind is bleu cheese, which, if I’m honest, doesn’t really feel like it belongs. First of all, it’s not “blue” cheese, it’s “bleu” as in ”Woof! Who let the stink in?” And I don’t think the blue part is even cheese, it’s some sort of blue bacteria growing on the cheese, and I’m sorry, but I didn’t see any bacteria pictures in the Superfood book that I’ve never read. So bleu cheese is out!

Spoon University (I’m not making that up!) lists blue carrots (they look more purple to me), concord blue grapes, Lingcod (more turquoise), blue pansy flowers (maybe if I was desperate), and blue sweet potatoes (they just look like dirty purple). Why so few blue foods? It has something to do with light energy and which zones of the visible spectrum are easier to absorb and use, and which get reflected. Nothing is truly any color, it turns out. Color is just a fabrication of our perception (something to ponder in these tumultuous times).

A quick Google search reveals that we perceive one in every two million lobsters to be blue. Really? And who exactly is counting these lobsters? We also list among the blue foods Indigo milk caps (a kind of mushroom), starflowers (an edible herb), Adirondack blue potatoes (they’re probably just cold), Hopi blue corn, and the eastern Australian blue marble tree. The same article rounds out the group with blue peeps. Blue peeps? Really? Are they even food? Aren’t they closer to packing peanuts, cotton balls, or fiberglass insulation? After the nuclear holocaust, the only thing left be will Twinkies and blue peeps, hanging around Hammonton wondering what happened to all the blueberries. Could you stuff blueberries inside Twinkies, I wonder? Or inside Peeps? You’d have to be careful where you stuffed ‘em. That could get weird!