The Many Delights of Strawberry Season

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The Wimbledon tennis championships conclude this weekend, and over the past two weeks, strawberries were a focus of fans who dined on dainty sandwiches and fruit-filled, icy Pimm’s drinks, followed by strawberries and cream. About 170,000 strawberries were shipped each day of the fortnight to Wimbledon. Yes, it’s high strawberry season in the northern hemisphere climes.

For me, growing up on the Illinois farm in the 1950s, strawberries were not a big thing. The season would come and go quickly, as we did not have many local growers. My grandparents had a small pyramid-shaped strawberry patch with a couple dozen plants that barely provided enough for the family. The problem was that people leaving the house in the morning would pluck a few strawberries before moving out into the fields. By evening, there were only a few left for dessert.

How cultivated strawberries a rose

These days, we have ample local growers here in New England that provide juicy strawberries – which are much more flavorful and preferable to the cardboard variety shipped in from California. Did you know that strawberries are actually a member of the rose family? Wild varieties have been consumed for thousands of years. Romans had medicinal uses (for melancholy and kidney stones), and the French began taking wild plants from the forest in the 14^th century. The British version of strawberries and cream was created for King Henry VIII. Native Chileans cultivated the plants. But it was not until the 1750s that the French bred the first garden strawberries.

Over these hundreds of years, the sweet and juicy strawberry has mostly occupied the supermarket dessert aisle. My grandmother had a rhubarb-strawberry pie recipe, and we occasionally had strawberry shortcake. I also ate my share of Jell-O with strawberries. But I didn’t consume anything groundbreaking until I moved to Boston in the 1960s and began cooking for myself. One of the first desserts I tried was a strawberry Chablis mousse that was delicious. Since then, I’ve been a fan of similar desserts, especially the strawberry pavlova that Mrs. Farmboy makes at least once during strawberry season. And we usually have strawberry shortcake, because it’s easy.

But with plenty of local strawberries currently available at our farmers’ markets, here are a few suggestions that stray from the easiest garden path. How about a Bavarian cream topped with strawberries? And if you have a little extra time, how about a strawberry cake or a strawberry rhubarb pie? If you’re looking for a dessert on a hot day, here’s the most-searched no-bake dessert in the South, according to Southern Living Magazine. This pie with a graham cracker crust is simply made of whipped cream, cream cheese, and powdered sugar with macerated strawberries, accented with a lemon zest zing – perfect to end a meal on a summer night.

Cool ideas for dinner

But why limit it to just desserts? You could start out a meal with a strawberry gazpacho. This recipe from the famed restaurant 11 Madison Park in Manhattan pretty much uses strawberries to replace the usual tomatoes. Not into chilled soup? How about strawberry cucumber ribbon salad? It’s visually striking as well as tasty. Serve it on a bed of goat cheese, and you’ve got yourself a winner. If you’re looking for something less formal, how about a grilled chicken and strawberry salad wrap? What’s not to like about a crunchy combination of protein, fruit, and salad greens?

You get the idea. Take advantage of strawberry season by venturing something new. And please share your ideas. What do you know about serving strawberries that we don’t?

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