Strawberries

As Sally points out, snacking off the half flat of strawberries, we live in the perfect place.  The strawberries started coming in real early (mid February) because of the warm winter.  Those first strawberries are huge (apparently, low temps mean they grow a while before ripening; later, as it gets warmer, they ripen before they get big).  Now that we're in April, it's sort of of a mix, at least for the Oxnard berries we're getting now. 

So we typically go through half a flat per week, buying them Saturday ($12/half flat today), and finishing them by Wednesday.  This afternoon, I was hulling half the half flat, so here's the picture

It rained a few weeks ago, so we have a fair number of "white shoulders" in this batch. What happens is that the fruit doesn't ripen evenly. The part that wasn't covered by the calyx (the leaves) ripens, but the cool inhibits it under the leaves, and then the warm after the rain causes the whole thing to ripen very quickly, so the color doesn't have time to develop.  They taste pretty much the same.. maybe a bit less intense, but there's a fair amount of variability anyway.  Just like wine grapes, there's a sort of balance between ripening, the sugar, the flavor, and the acid content.  When they're "ripe" you have to pick.  When it all works out right, you get that great intense flavor, sweet but with enough acid. 

There used to only be maybe a half dozen varieties (Cavendish, Sequoia, Camrosa, etc.) but now there's customized varieties for everywhere, all looking for that balance and tied to the average growing conditions. If conditions aren't average (like this year), then maybe it will be better, maybe not as good.  I will contend though, that it's rare to get bad strawberries. The worst it gets is sort of insipid sweet without much flavor.

In the picture, you can see we're starting to get the mix of sizes from the "bigger than a golf ball" down to the 1 cm hazelnut size.  Since we're buying at the roadside stand in quantity, I think we're getting a wider variety than you might see in a more upscale location.  I recall seeing "Oxnard Strawberries"  in the food hall at Harrod's at 10 pounds/pint.  At that price, you can have someone make sure they're all exactly the same size.  Or maybe it's just the place we get them.  There's someone selling strawberries on almost every major street corner this time of year. (Which is what prompts Sally's comment)

Later in the year, Oxnard gets too warm, and the berries come down from Watsonville (which is up near Monterey and Santa Cruz), but still, we can count on fresh berries well into the summer and fall.  I'm still looking for the perfect gelato di fragola (or is it fragole?) recipe. I've learned that sugar content in the mix is critical, so I bought a sugar refractometer last year, so this year, I'm ready for some serious experimentation.

Yes, I pity those folks who live where strawberries are a "special thing in July".