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

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.