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Strawberries Forever
Posted By Virgil Evetts On October 14, 2010 @ 9:20 am In Features,Foodlovers Travel | 1 Comment
Virgil Evetts
How can John Lennon be 70? Well he can’t be, obviously, but it is at least 70 years since he was born. Maybe it’s because he will forever be frozen as performer in his prime that I find it so hard to accept the idea that Strawberry Fields Forever, a song that I took very literally as a greedy little boy, was written by a guy who would now be a total geezer – if it weren’t for those bullets.
As I grew up I came to realise (with some reluctance) that the song wasn’t about strawberries at all. I’m not sure it’s about anything coherent actually, but it will forever make me think of sweeping fields of gorgeously fragrant, sanguineous strawberries. It’s very nice timing really that Lennon’s birthday coincides with the beginning of the strawberry season in our neck of the woods, if for no other reason than it gives legitimacy to an otherwise tenuous opening paragraph; so thanks, John.
Strawberries are one of the world’s most popular fruit and although cheap as chips in peak season they always have an air of sensuous luxury about them. Their heady fragrance and heartbreakingly tender flesh is the stuff of true contentment. In New Zealand, all commercially grown strawberries are hybrid cultivars. They are typically large, shiny, red throughout and very fragrant. Flavour and sweetness can vary tremendously depending on the weather leading up harvest. Avoid buying strawberries after days of cool wet weather. Not only will the fruit be unripe, they will be overfilled with water and therefore insipid.
Admittedly strawberries are only just appearing in the shops as I write these words, but in the coming weeks, the skies will clear, the temperatures will rise and the current trickle of fruit will become a torrent.
In my opinion cultivated the fruit are at their best before Christmas, and to make the most of them you really have to work quickly. At the beginning of the season, when prices are still high, I prefer to really savour strawberries. There will be plenty of time for detail and complexity later on, but with my first few punnets I like to keep things simple.
The old Wimbledon classic of strawberries and cream – with perhaps just the lightest dusting of icing sugar – is a very good start. When I was at primary school, the highly incongruous end of the year reward for the hard-working crossing monitors was a strawberry -cream lunch, followed by a day at Rainbow’s End. I’ve never really cared for rollercoasters, but the promise of those strawberries kept me in a sash and fluro vest for several years.
Strawberry liqueur
Every summer I try to put down a couple of bottle of strawberry liqueur. This gorgeously fragrant elixir is a doddle to make, and dangerously easy to drink.
Fill a large preserving jar with strawberries, cover with vodka, seal and forget about it for six months. Sometime around mid winter, open the jars, strain and sweeten to taste with sugar syrup. Usually the fruit will have disintegrated into a rather sad and flavourless pulp so are best discarded. Strawberry liqueur can be drunk neat, used in champagne cocktails or poured over ice-cream.
To the best of my knowledge, wild or alpine strawberries (Fragaria vesca) are not grown commercially in New Zealand. This is a gap in the market just waiting to be filled. The tiny fruit of these species strawberries (i.e. not hybridised) don’t look like much, but offer an intensity of flavour and fragrance that really has to be experienced to be believed. Alpine or wild strawberries can be either white or red, with significant differences between the two. The red form offers the more traditional strawberry flavour but with a floral, honey-like accent, while the white form tastes of Muscat grapes, with only a slight trace of strawberry.
Although you won’t find the fruit in local shops, plants are widely available through garden centres. Usually sold as Alpine Strawberries, they don’t produce anything like the bumper crops of their hybrid cousins (Fragaria × ananassa), and they are prone to weediness, but make up for these shortcomings with the exuberant quality of their fruit.
Happy Strawberry Season!
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URL to article: https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/features/9338.html
URLs in this post:
[1] Eton Mess. : https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/recipes/eton-mess.html
[2] strawberry roulade: https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/recipes/lemon-roulade-filled-with-strawberries-and-cream.html
[3] Strawberry pie : https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/recipes/strawberry-pie.html
[4] Strawberry shortcake : https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/recipes/strawberry-shortcake.html
[5] Strawberry coulis : https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/recipes/strawberry-coulis.html
[6] Strawberry jam : https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/uncategorized/strawberry-jam.html
[7] fresh scones : https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/recipes/perfect-scones.html
[8] any finer ice cream flavour than strawberry: https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/uncategorized/strawberry-icecream.html
[9] balsamic vinegar : https://www.foodlovers.co.nz/features/loving-food/balsamic-vinegar-uses.html
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