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Strawberries (& Cream)

Author Damien Wilde
Posted On 2nd July 2015

StrawberriesCream (1)

As Britain begins to bask in temperatures that could reach upwards of 35°C, one of the most popular summer food trends is about to break into the spotlight and (quite literally) enjoy its time in the sun.

Down in SW19 some 28,000kg of these will be consumed by tennis fans sat watching sportspeople in white whilst around the country’s farms will be opening their gates to welcome families of all ages for a spot of picking. We are, of course, talking about the strawberry.

Despite being seen as something quintessentially British – at least in these fair isles – the strawberry’s lineage as a commercial fruit and one to be enjoyed can be traced back to the age of gladiatorial combat and Latin dominance. But though we’re sure that the Romans enjoyed nibbling on a strawberry or two, early texts seem to suggest that the wild fruits tended to be used in a medicinal form. We can’t help but think the Romans invented strawberry flavoured cough syrup….

As the centuries rolled on the strawberry gradually began to find homes with the gardens of the landed aristocracy and the fields of clergy. It is purported that Charles V of France had over 1,000 plants brought into his royal garden, a move which helped boost the fruit’s popularity. A couple of hundred years later the cultivation of strawberries for commercial purposes had started to become popular and an insatiable desire was beginning to sweep through western Europe – noticeably in England where one prominent Tudor politician created something truly spectacular. But more on that later….

Even as the first settlers made their away across the Atlantic to move to pastures new the strawberry came with them. Those early movers found, in Massachusetts, a bountiful supply of wild strawberries for them to enjoy at their leisure. Reports even suggest that the Native American Indians had been farming them for years.

Wherever we’ve turned, we’ve seen, grown and eaten the strawberry and our consumption of them has gone up year on year. Today Americans eat four times as many strawberries as they did four decades ago and here in the United Kingdom we consistently rank the delicious red fruit as one of our favourite flavours and preferred fillings.

The prototypical way to serve a punnet of strawberries at this wonderful time of the year is with a spoonful (or two) of freshly poured cream, or with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. But did you know that a man by the name of Thomas Wolsey is widely credited for serving up the first portion of strawberries and cream?

A courtier of the highest order, Cardinal/Archbishop of York/Lord Chancellor (choose whichever title you wish, he held each position at some point in his political career) Wolsey rose through the ranks at court to become a powerful figure at the side of King Henry VIII and would often hold lavish banquets for his many royal and politically important guests. At one of these grandiose dinner parties a chef in Wolsey’s employment decided to mix the royal fruit of strawberries with a favourite of the peasants, cream. In that moment, a staple was born and Wolsey took the credit.

Luckily for fans of that dish, some scientific research was conducted recently to determine the perfect cream to strawberry ratio. The study, led by Dr Farrimond who hosts a “life science” segment on BBC radio, found that the perfect proportion is 7.5g of cream per strawberry – basically a 30:70 split, or one tablespoon of single cream for every two medium-sized strawberries. Importantly, it was also determined that we should gobble up our punnets in less than three minutes.

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