Wimbledon sensation with VERY Scottish roots
No, not Cameron Norrie but strawberries... the quintessential taste of English summer with a pedigree that originates far from SW19!
WIMBLEdOn is no more immune to these difficult times than the rest of us; nor is the All England Club an entire stranger to avarice. Yet even these blazered nabobs know where to draw the line.
A glass of Pimm’s at the championships is this year up 15 per cent – to £9.75 – and a Lavazza coffee is £3.60, up 30p. But a helping of strawberries and cream is still £2.50 – a prize frozen since 2010 for the quintessential treat of the British summer.
And, though you can buy them all year round these days – often with little more taste than Styrofoam – strawberries are an emphatically seasonal fruit.
While British growers have worked hard to extend that season, typically from April to October, strawberries are at their most fragrant and flavoursome in the high weeks of June and July.
This is especially true when there is warm weather and there has been sufficient rain. And they really are at their best when eaten just as they are.
The fruit does not take kindly to cooking, canning or the deep-freeze – unless you can lay your hands on a jar of Tiptree’s Little Scarlet strawberry conserve, rarely found beyond high-end stores such as Waitrose or harvey nichols.
Wild strawberries are native to these islands and we have been transplanting them to our gardens for centuries.
Ancient Roman literature mentions their supposed medicinal qualities. King Charles V of France had 1,200 plants in his regimented 14th century garden.
By then, they were already appearing in monks’ illuminated manuscripts and there was a widespread belief they were good for depression.
But this basic woodland fruit was tiny and the journey to a commercially viable strawberry crop was a long one.
The first breakthrough was in the 1500s, when Virginian strawberry plants were brought to England from America. They were much sweeter than our own, but still very small.
ThEn, in 1712, a French spy called Frézier was sent to have a peek at Spanish fortifications in Chile. While noting battlements and gun emplacements, he spotted wild, large-fruiting strawberries and, with Gallic regard for the pleasures of the table, took several plants away with him.
Fragaria chiloensis does not taste of anything very much, but after its arrival in France gardeners in Brest and Cherbourg noticed how much more delicious it became when planted alongside the wild fruit, Fragaria vesca, and that was the breakthrough.
So gardeners began deliberately cross-breeding assorted strawberry plants. By 1822 there was such a plethora of English hybrids that the horticultural Society of London decided to impose some order, so the plant could be systematically improved. Forms were sent forth ‘to all who are known to be attentive cultivators of strawberries’ and, within weeks, 70 had been returned complete, as well as more than 400 parcels of plants for the LhS’s experimental garden at Chiswick.
A young Scot, James Barnet, took charge of this selection, weeding out duplicates and, over a season or three, established which strains grew best, in which conditions and for each purpose – jam, dessert and so on.
So growers at last had a reliable source of reference and it is from these endeavours the strawberries we enjoy today descend.
It’s a funny plant. It is shallowrooted – hence its name. Traditionally, straw was strewn below the leaves to protect the roots from fierce sun. Left to its own devices, it propagates by extending runners.
Strictly, the strawberry is not a berry at all. It is an ‘aggregate accessory’ fruit – a posh way of saying the sweet flesh is not the ovary but the receptacle for the ovaries (the apparent seeds on the skin, though the real seeds are inside them).
Strawberries are best eaten as soon after picking as possible, which is why you are probably wisest to body-swerve supermarket offerings for produce grown not too far away.
The lustrous fruit from Blacketyside Farm, in Fife, is widely sold in Edinburgh and elsewhere and is in peak form just now. Though – if you can find them – strawberries from Peter J Stirling’s Seahills Farm, on the coast near Arbroath, may be the finest in Scotland.
‘One of the reasons our strawberries taste so good is our ideal location next to the sea,’ Seahills Farm enthuses. ‘Our summers are never too hot, so the berries grow slowly and big. They also get lots of extra seaside sunshine, producing a super sweet taste.’
Blacketyside Farm in Leven, though, offers not just strawberries but an outing. You can roll up and pick your own fruit, browse in the farm shop or relax in their café over tea, coffee, and assorted dainties from their own bakehouse.
NOT to mention the butchery, the florist, and the plant shop – except on Sundays: the Todd family are kindly Christians who rolled into Fife in 1992 from northern Ireland. ‘We were attracted by the farm’s good quality land and great coastal location,’ murmurs the Blacketyside website.
Of course, Scotland boasts many other growers and what was once the brief six-week season for tasty Scottish strawberries – as recently as the early nineties – has been transformed by technology.
Polytunnels with the trademarked Seaton System – pioneered by Angus Soft Fruits – automatically regulate air, heat and light for cossetted tabletop strawberry plants, and for some years an exclusive group of growers has concentrated on AVA strawberries, which fruit beautifully in Scottish conditions.
‘The more temperate climate in Scotland allows the berries to have longer daylight hours,’ says Anna Mitchell from Castleton Fruit Farm, Kincardineshire, ‘but without the same levels of heat. This allows the berries to ripen slower so they produce more sugar and you get a sweeter berry.’ Tim Stockwell, from Barnsmuir
Farm in Fife, agrees. ‘Scottish strawberries are famously some of the best in the world and the north-East of Scotland and Fife have the ideal climate for growing the perfect strawberry, with its warm days and cool nights.
‘Check the label to see where your strawberries are grown. You can find this information on the small white label on punnets… If it’s an AVA variety you can be sure you are buying strawberries of the highest quality grown here in Fife and the north-east of Scotland.’
And all the better for your nerves, when next Sir Andy Murray or Cameron norrie strides on to Centre Court.