Facts & Fun on Strawberries.

Perhaps the picture and my reigning image is not enough…

I love strawberries. I love blueberries, too. And blackberries the size of golf balls I would pick in Mississippi in the well over 100 heat. And raspberries, typical ones and little wild tart ones. Alright, so the truth is out there, that I could dive into a bowl of berries and be quite happy dipping and weaving between their juice filled little bodies. Yet this writing will focus on the southern beauty that is the Louisiana Strawberry.

My berries are red to the core I used to tell people, and I was right as the berries from the never freezing Louisana are red all the way through to the very middle. There is even a grand celebration festival in there, the Pontchatoula Strawberry Festival. A yearly event as the area north of the Pontchartrain Lake is prime strawberry growing land, and has been since the 1930s. Sugarcane was huge for much of the land outside of New Orleans as immigrants came over to the United States by way of the bayou basin port city that connected the mighty Mississippi to the rest of the world. Some Italian immigrants started the sugarcane farms, yet the climate and soil in this northern area could not support that and strawberries began to be grown. Spring is strawberry season, yet they come out earlier and earlier depending on the heat that swells from the south even early in the year.

Strawberries in the north are tiny little babes with a tart flavor, not as sun sweetened and plump as my southern berries. My family would buy flats of strawberries and I could easily eat the entire tray myself. Many times I would sit on my kitchen counter as a child with my mother, grabbing the strawberries fresh from washing by their water dotted green tops. Grasping tightly with my child fingers, I would dip the berries into glass bowls of sugar, casting a snow of sugar crystals over the berries tips like red spotted mountain tops. Other days they would be chopped up into slurries of fruit to gorge on with a spoon, sided by whipped cream and placed on Belgium waffles or sliced on top of pure vanilla ice cream. (Breyers or home made, of course.) I coated them with Hershey's syrup as a little one before I knew the beauty of a deep dark chocolate ganache and how that could take a berry to new levels. Eaten with my fingers of course, the only way to really transport berry to mouth quickly. I made quick jams and chose them to place on all the tarts I made when I learned about pastry creams and proper tartlet crust making.

I have investigated the growing procedures of my Lousiana Strawberries, finding many small and local farms producing many of the branded LA Strawberries. Emails are still out to check on if any or organic though I fully support small farms that invite you to come pick-your-own. Some even have tours for children on how strawberries grow. Education is a huge component of showing the next generation where food comes from and why pulling berries from the green vines and the very dirt that gave them life is such an integral part to connecting the child to the land. Touch, smell and sight work together in unison during berry picking (or any hand done harvesting for that matter.) If you are in any way involved with Slow Foods (and you should be,) please find a berry farm or local farmer to purchase your strawberries from.
Yet I should be proud to have such a bounty of pure shining red nutrition so close to home. Strawberries happen to be one of the healthiest and happiest fruits to exist. Though this member of the rose family is not a fruit per say, but is actually a receptacle for the fruit (white seeds on top.) The little white dots are actually the fruit. Called achenes, the "fruits" account for 14% of the strawberry's antioxidants. Gotta love when they get all stuck in your teeth now. High in vitamin C, folic acid and potassium, yet low in calories, the strawberry should be part of everyone's diet. They were said to be a sign of purity and righteousness, as well as peace and prosperity. What a thought to bring a smile to your face. Hey, in France I hear they are considered an aphrodisiac. Perhaps that is why I get along so well with the strawberry. We're both sweet, pure and precious, the first to bloom in the spring and happy to thrive in the hot southern America temperatures. Alright, the southern season does end in July, where is might just be beginning in some of the northern or cooler spots. Either way, get out there and find yourself from strawberries. Of course, I want to tell you to only get my berries…that hail from the south and rarely disappoint. Bake a pie. Stir into a bowl of whipped cream.

Or just eat them plain as their luscious naked selves.