Food News: A season to celebrate the humble strawberry

"Strawberry season is nearing its peak around Memorial Day weekend, with a bounty of plump, crimson beauties in market stalls. No matter how many times we see them, their appearance is always a casual kind of revelation.

Their taste is revelatory too - especially fresh strawberries, as locally grown as possible. These are nature's fragile and highly perishable gifts, and they bear little resemblance to the cross-country-trekked, tasteless fruit that shows up year-round in supermarkets - too light in color, often hollow, mealy and bland.

The best berries are farmers-market berries, ripened on the plant and available now until mid-June, and best eaten as simply as possible - ideally right out of their clamshells on the way home.

This spring is shaping up to be a terrific strawberry season, according to grower Daryl Rineer of Rineer Family Farms in Lancaster County. Rineer says the weather has been perfect.

"The drier weather makes the berries sweeter," he says, explaining that the flavors get more condensed, whereas rains make for waterlogged, less-interesting berries.

Rineer grows three varieties, Chandlers, Sweet Charley's and Camarosas; the Sweet Charley's are the earliest and often the sweetest, and are available now in the farmers markets around town where he brings his berries.

If you want to get as close to the source as possible, pick your own berries at some of the local berry farms: Springdale Farms in Cherry Hill will let you into its fields at the end of May. "Maybe a little earlier," says owner John Ebert, echoing Rineer's opinion that this is looking to be a banner strawberry year."

Full article here.

May 29, 2006

Food News: A season to celebrate the humble strawberry