The Maestro

It is a funny thing about flavor, with strawberries. There's not much left to be said about the deficiencies of the steroidal supermarket berry. The best strawberries I ever tasted were from a pick-your-own place in rural Suffolk, near the home of some elderly cousins. They were so delicious, all through their entirely red interiors, so fragrant and heady, that I felt a bit light-headed, actually. I assumed this was merely because they were home-grown, fresh, ripe, and unrefrigerated. Certainly, these were important factors. Later, though, I grew some strawberries of my own, when I had a garden. I was surprised to discover that although they were definitely superior to store berries, they were not a patch on the Suffolk ones.

The difference was sufficiently great that I had no doubt that it was real, rather than the rosy glow of a holiday memory. I had tried to choose a type of strawberry that had not been bred for commerce and storage, but that hadn't completely done the trick. Later, I went to a western PA pick-you-own strawberries place. I got lots of berries and permanently pink knees on my jeans (kind of a nice memento, really). They were good, but not as good as my backyard berries, and certainly less wonderful than my enshrined ideal berry. I have come to the entirely unscientific conclusion that the soil in which the strawberries are grown must be a big factor.

There was a little container of real strawberries in my farmbox this week. They were really very nice berries. It's funny, but some of the berries taste more wonderful than others in the same box. Mysterious. If I had a lot of these, I'd be making jam, tarts, ice cream. But I first I would have had to enjoy some just plain. Since I didn't have enough to cook with, I decided to make a bit of a fuss over having the lot, straight from the box.

This is hardly a recipe at all. It appears in Cuisina Fresca, by Viana La Place, credited to a musician friend-hence the name. The berries are washed, stems left on, air dried and placed in a serving bowl. On each person's plate goes one Tbsp of white sugar, with about 2 tsps of balsamic vinegar poured carefully over the sugar, to form a paste. The berries are dipped in the mixture, and you have some very strong espresso with it . It is, of course, not to be attempted with giant supermarket strawberries that taste like raw potatoes. Other than that, you really can't go wrong.

And I'm consoling myself for my failure to make strawberry jam. I ordered 2 jars of strawberry rhubarb jam from Bakerina Kitchens, a little on line shop of wonderful homemade preserves by the lovely and clever Bakerina.If you want some, you'd better hurry up, as she has only got about 30 jars.

Comments

[Luisa]

For some reason, strawberries seem like the most quintessential, romantic English food (I imagine strawberry fools and Eton Messes and pavlovas, though those aren't even English but still of the Commonwealth), so I love the idea of you gathering strawberries in Suffolk.

[lobstersquad]

You gotta hand it to them, English strawberries are the best, period. Here in Spain we don´t even grow real strawberries, just some mammoth variety that tastes mostly like wet grass.

[Rachel]

While strawberries maybe a typical English fruit, sadly like other coutnries, ours seem these days to have very little flavour. Unless of course you grow your own! It seems absurd to me to grow fruit that doesn't taste of anything! Sorry, it's another of my moans!

[Tanna]

Umm, we must each have such vivid memories of that spectaular moment when there's not another one in the world. A strawberry with flavor is a wonderous thing. One year I grew a plant in the top of a strawberry pot. I got one berry; it was a fruit for a god. And yes, I mean this plant only gave me one berry and didn't return the next year.

[pyewacket]

Strawberries are also deeply weather-dependent. A good apple tree will give you pretty good apples, even in a bad year. Blackberries are generally good int he depths of a bramble thicket no matter what the weather has been like. But strawberries are different; weather during their brief life span is hugely important. Enough rain to give a decent crop, but not so much that the berries get oversized and flavorless. Lots of sun - not so hot that the strawberry plants dry out, but enough to concentrate the sugars. A good strawberry year is like a great year in the vineyards - it doesn't come around that often, and the best fields in the best years are unforgettable.

[steven]

Strawberies and balsamic is fantastic, I usually add a quick grind of black pepper as well.

[Tania]

I have yet to try the delighful sounding strawberries-with-balsamic combination. Strawberry season will soon be here, and I cannot wait!

I love the absolute redness of the berries in your photos, by the way, not to mention the long stems. Now THOSE look like real strawberries!

[Julie]

I have yet to have a truly good strawberry this year, but just had my first pretty good batch. One of the things that always puzzles me about strawberries is how they can have such wonderful fragrance and still have no taste.

[Pamela]

I agree wholeheartedly, my best and first memory of strawberries are at a pick your own place just outside Hamilton (Scotland), picking strawberries with my aunt.

It was the first time I had seen such a place since I lived in the city (Glasgow - there was nowhere like this near where we lived).

The strawberries were juicy, sweet and more-ish. Mmmm

[Rebecca]

This may be a good year for strawberries in Pennsylvania; I bought some local berries at McGinnis Sisters that were mostly very good, and all the ones I've gotten at the Farmers' Market have been good so far.

The best strawberries I've ever eaten have come from the roadside markets in Quebec between NY state and Montreal; they're tiny, almost like wild strawberries, and the flavor is concentrated sweetness, so wonderful, and really reasonably priced, especially considering the labor that must go into picking such small berries.

[Lynn D.]

I think the variety of strawberry plant is very important. The really tasty varieties we remember from our youth have been superceded by more hardy, prolific and tasteless varieties. Occaisonally at farmers markets here in Oregon you can find a variety called Hood; it is out of this world. More readily available is a variety called Totem which is also good, and the other varieties aren't worth bothering with. I just had some farmers market totems with sugar and basalmic. Very, berry good!

[lindy]

Luisa-I think good strawberres live up to their romantic associations..they are sort of intoxicating, really. (and awfully disappointing when they turn out to be not good ones)
lobstersquad-I wonder why Spanish strawberries are not good. the heat? Lynn's-from the Pacific Northwest-come from a climate very similar to the English one. Here in Pittsburgh, we have extremes of heat and cold.
pyewacket-I like the comparison to wine grapes. Maybe, like wine grapes, the best ones are grown without irrigation, concentrating flavor?
steven- Tried the black pepper. It was excellent.
Tania-and red all through! lovely!
Julie-it is true, the supermarket strawberries do smell good..but it is as if they were sprayed with the smell-nothing inside.
Pamela-there is something about picking them that adds to it all. I'm a bit lazy for bulk berry picking these days-they are low, and hard on the back!
Rebecca-I planted some tiny wild-type strawberries when my parents had a country place some years ago. It had a very little garden, and I bought these plants and put them as a low border in the front of their flower beds. They only got a bowl or 2 of berries every year..but they were unbelievably sweet.
Lynn-if I ever am lucky enough to have a garden again, I will try to get some plants of the Hood variety. Do you grow berries?

[Jen]

The strawberries are indeed lovely. I have eaten most of mine plain, and given away about half of them to my sisters (I am hoping there might be more next week). I'd love to make jam; my youngest sister and I may be going to a pick-your-own farm soon, and hopefully we can find some good berries there.

[Bakerina (on the road, in the Rockies!)]

Oh, Lindy! I have been in Colorado for the past four days -- and preparing to go to Colorado for three days before that -- or else my manners would not have failed me so. Thank you, a hundred thousand times, for the link. Thank you also for this beautiful post, and for that berry picture, at which I can't stop looking. :)

I will be back in New York on Wednesday night, and with any luck, my manners should return by the weekend. Then again, it *is* New York I'm coming back to... ;)