Since when are strawberries an ‘everyday essential’ in the depths of winter?

Nigel Slater's 'Toast' book is one I read and re-read. Takes me back to my childhood days in the 50s/60s when food choices were limited, and we knew no different then.

Now we are overwhelmed by supermarkets with aisles and aisles of everything - entire aisle of yogurts, entire aisle of cheeses, entire aisles of sauces, entire aisles of ready meals, for example.

Sometimes I really crave the simplicity of the days when we had so little choice, and a strawberry in summer was a real treat.

welbeck

i have never thought of or been aware of fruits having seasons, except by reading about it in here and similar.
if i want a raspberry or whatever, i will pay to have one.
don't care where it comes from.
perhaps i am less aware of this as i never cared for strawberries.

Fruit is always in season somewhere in the world, but consider the transport costs to get them here. If you look at the source you can see if they are locally grown, and therefore in season. However, bananas are the main exception - and we provide a good source of income for the tropical growers.

It was 1962, when Japan airlines gifted my father a small crate of satsumas as a special item
In 1970, I walked into a greengrocer, who had them on a special display in December as a novelty item

We had many different varieties of British apples and pears through this time of the year, and we bottled other fruits, such as plums

My aunt had damson trees on her farm and she and Mum would pick them - damson tarts, damson jam, lovely.
The only thing was they're more difficult to stone than plums and some of the stones were in the jam!

I think we have to grow damson trees. I never see them in the shops. Callistemon

Why do we never see damsons now?
Such a lovely fruit.

The traditional Scottish peasant diet was very limited but apparently healthy.
Fish, oats, eggs, occasional meat, kale, potatoes and berries. Wild raspberry Blaeberries, strawberry, apples, cherries, damsons, nuts....honey too
Actually I keep adding things so it wasn't so limited! 😉

vegansrock I disagree, there has never been a time when we only ate food in season, at least not since prehistoric times. Food has always been picked in season and then preserved in many different ways, from drying and pickling to, today, bottling, canning, freezing and other ways of preseving food.

Shantygirl much out of season fruit is not flown in, but comes in by lorry from north Africa and southern Spain. In winter, this is actually more environmentally friendly than eating the same fruit grown in heated glass houses in the Netherlands or the UK. the amount of ebergy used by lorries is less than that used to heat the greenhouses.

We have many wild strawberry plants beneath the trees. Sadly we get to eat very few of them because the mice and other wild creatures get to them first.

Winter strawberries are usually from Egypt.
And they are virtually tasteless. So I won’t buy them.

British strawberries are the best.

We try to east seasonally, we grow a lot of fruit, autumn raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, loganberries and rhubarb. I freeze all the excess but sadly this year my fridge freezer broke down and we lost all our lovely fruit. I will not replace any of it by buying tasteless fruit using thousands of air miles. In winter our porridge is topped with prunes and bananas (at least bananas aren't flown here) 🤔

If we only ate food in season we’d have a really restrictive diet.

Norah

Sandynan

Really?? All fruit and veg have a season and there lies the problem that has a massive environmental impact. All the heating and water it takes to grow them out of season plus fuel and transport costs and pollution to get them from overseas.. please only buy fruit and veg at the right time of year from your own country.

Huh -- never eat bananas?

😁
More succinct than me, Norah!

welbeck

i think for most ordinary people, like me, this is all irrelevant.
cost is the only factor.
if they like something and can afford to buy it, they will; if they can't afford to, they won't.
i've never had any awareness of seasons with foods.

I think it's taste, too.

Spanish strawberries just don't have the same taste as seasonal British ones and, as shown in the Simon Reeve programmes, sometimes the conditions they are grown in are appalling for the migrant workers.

Sandynan

Really?? All fruit and veg have a season and there lies the problem that has a massive environmental impact. All the heating and water it takes to grow them out of season plus fuel and transport costs and pollution to get them from overseas.. please only buy fruit and veg at the right time of year from your own country.

Huh -- never eat bananas?

Sandynan

Really?? All fruit and veg have a season and there lies the problem that has a massive environmental impact. All the heating and water it takes to grow them out of season plus fuel and transport costs and pollution to get them from overseas.. please only buy fruit and veg at the right time of year from your own country.

We've been eating oranges in this country since at least the 1500s - I don't think we're going to stop now.
Remember Nell Gwyn?

Bananas and pineapples - 1600s
Mangoes and avocados not until the 1900s

Should we destroy the livelihoods of farmers worldwide by refusing to buy any fruits grown overseas?

i think for most ordinary people, like me, this is all irrelevant.
cost is the only factor.
if they like something and can afford to buy it, they will; if they can't afford to, they won't.
i've never had any awareness of seasons with foods.

Really?? All fruit and veg have a season and there lies the problem that has a massive environmental impact. All the heating and water it takes to grow them out of season plus fuel and transport costs and pollution to get them from overseas.. please only buy fruit and veg at the right time of year from your own country.

I needed to buy some olives in Tesco a few years ago. I struggled to find them and had to ask an assistant for help. They were in the ‘Household Essentials’ aisle!

I don’t like supermarket strawberries there’s no taste to them when they are in season but when they aren’t they are just hard and tasteless, I buy mine from a local farm shop only when in season

Strawberries, Mangoes, Pineapples amongst many other fruits are available in Spain, pretty much year round.

They are big sellers during the Navideñas which starts on the 23rd of December and ends on the 7th of January.

Agree with you about asparagus Dinahmo.
We are lucky enough to live near Formby where they grow fabulous asparagus. Around about May each year there is a frisson of excitement in the family, keen to see if the asparagus is ready.
When we hear it’s ready my daughter & her husband go to Formby to do the asparagus walk & buy fresh asparagus!
My alternative is M&S, about May each year, M&S have lovely asparagus from Herefordshire!
Once the season for British asparagus is finished, that’s it until next year.
The asparagus from Peru or wherever is tasteless & we enjoy waiting for the superior British asparagus & eating lots of the stuff, even if (or because ) it’s only for a short time!

. We grow strawberries in the garden and they are delicious straight off the plant. Although I would never consider buying them out of season, we do have bags full of them in the freezer for jam, ice cream, smoothies etc as they don't freeze well enough to eat them just as berries. I'm surprised they're considered essential as they're not exactly cheap at this time of year & they probably have no flavour. Essential to me means bread, milk, eggs & other " humble necessaries"!

Blueberries aren't a native fruit. Whatever happened to the good old fashioned blackcurrant.

I never ever buy strawberries out of season for myself, but my two youngest grandchildren are used to having them (and other berries) daily. So yes, when the children are with me I buy out of season fruit. You have to pick your fights 🤷🏼‍♀️

Don’t buy strawberries in winter time far too hard n as someone else mentioned can be white in the middle. Buy plenty of Bluberries for breakfast cereal sometimes grapes too. Apples, oranges n bananas are fine.