Let's play a word association game: Fruit. English. GO! How many of you came up with strawberries? Plenty, I'm sure, and if you didn't I assume that's only because you're an English apple loyalist. But if you are a lover of the heart-shaped, juicy red berry you're in luck as the spring heatwave we've enjoyed over the last month means a bumper crop of British strawberries are hitting shops and farmers markets up and down the land – a mammoth 400 tonnes are headed for supermarkets alone.
Better still, the unaccustomed Mediterranean warmth has sent the plants into a frenzy of sugar production giving the fruit a burst of sweetness that in cooler years early strawberries fail to deliver. What's more, the consistent days of glorious sunshine have boosted bees' busyness to such a degree that pollination of strawberry plants is at a record high.
As there's nothing more disappointing than biting into a perfectly shaped, jewel-coloured dewy fruit only to have a watery, vaguely sweet, not-even-definitively strawberry-tasting flavour collapse on your tongue, this is good news. Imported fruits are so often unsatisfactory for precisely this reason, and it's cheering to hear that Tesco has cut foreign imports by 50% thanks to the recent glut. The variety makes a big difference to taste too, and as I spotted a promising looking box of British jubilee strawberries in Marks & Spencer only the other day it may not be too much to hope that supermarket fruit is being grown for flavour rather than just appearance and endurance.
There is of course nothing more redolent of England as seen through rose (or strawberry) tinted spectacles than strawberries and cream. Think balmy summer days, cricket matches and women wafting about in tea dresses and you'll get the picture. And Wimbledon tennis fortnight, of course, where every year 27,000 kilos of strawberries are eaten topped with 7,000 litres of cream.
Actually we have practically evolved alongside the precious Fragaria vesca; wild strawberries have grown here, and been foraged for, since the ice age with cultivated varieties taking off in the mid-sixteenth century. But capturing that essence of intense, sweet strawberry-ness that fans of the woodland strawberry so rave about has been elusive, and experimentation with different varieties has been the hallmark of strawberry cultivation with few standing the test of time. For lyrical lovers of the wild fruit such as Robert Graves a cultivated berry will never compete on flavour, as his poem Wild Strawberries describes:
Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine.
Yet, most of us are happy enough to devour home-grown berries: the ubiquitous Elsanta has come in for criticism of its watery flavour but if you are lucky you will find Jubilee, Mara des Bois, Symphony or Florence.
Whenever we wish to impress strawberries are a sure-fire hit; wanton lovers score with the cliché of strawberries dipped in champagne (though you'd have to be drunk or in love to enjoy something so potentially messy and unappetising) and for foreign visitors sceptical about our native abundance it is the likes of asparagus and strawberries that we turn to for seasonal banquets.
Strawberries are famously paired with all kinds of other indulgences – the aforementioned rivers of cream but also chocolate from virginal white (too sickly) to sinfully dark and sugar of course - a heavy hand with the sliver shaker often employed. Personally I like my strawberries naturally sweet, never cold, and as naked as they day they were picked.
But if we are facing a glut will the season peak too soon? Will we get fed up with popping sweet berries in our own mouths and wiping crimson smears off children before the season is up? I doubt it. There are plenty of uses for strawberries once the novelty of devouring a kilo as you fill your pick-your-own basket has worn off.
Traditional English delicacies make the most of our native fruit: tarts, summer puddings, cheesecakes, and trifles, and there is no reason not to borrow from other cultures – the Italian habit of splashing strawberries with a little balsamic vinegar for example is surprisingly tasty (as used in this cheesecake recipe). And if you are really swimming in strawberries there is always jam unbeatable on a fire-toasted crumpet in the depths of winter. So if you're a fan of strawberries, how do you rate those in the supermarkets and what do you do when your kitchen counter is groaning with pools of leaking red berries?
