Food Strawberries: What the Supermarket Doesn't Tell You

I don't like grocery store strawberries. Every one I have ever had tasted tart (not in a good way), too firm texturally, and just bleh. I don't think I can recall ever having any really good strawberries.

 

I've never been a strawberry person, so as far as strawberries I can't agree or disagree with you Borla.

The reason, I quote is I notice the same about watermelon. It doesn't have the taste that it once did. Same with Honeydew. I think part of the problem is they hit the market before they are ripe and then sit ripening but without the actual plant supplying the needed nutrients. Farm fresh fruits are the only true way to go.

 

The best strawberries I've had were in the Canadian Rockies. They were small/tiny, but they tasted so good. Part of that might have been due to the lack of food I had at the time though.

I'm aware that they use nasty chemicals on strawberries, and have heard stories of people getting sick that live next to the farms.

 

We had a strawberry u-pick right down the hill from us.
I can't tell you the type of berries, only that they were spectacular.
Deep red, not very big, incredible depth of taste with plenty of sweetness.
You had to eat them within 48 hours or so of picking because they went soft. So they could never work for a grocery store in a commercial sense.

 

Great posts, snowy, guys.

When you need to dip your strawberries in sugar to get them sweet, you're growing them wrong.

To be a little punny, we need to be more picky with what we pick out of the strawberry fields, forever.

 

Plant City, Florida strawberries are so freaking amazing. But the Riverside Arts Market has these people that grow them organically near Lakeland.... non-GMO, all organic, big, red, sweet, and spectacular.

 

I have a pick-ur-own farm not too far from me. I haven't been there to pick in a few years (my back can't take it anymore) but do still stop to buy a container now and then when I'm out "that way" and they are in season. There is no comparison between the real thing and the tasteless grocery store alternatives which are as big as as my kneecap and tend to rot long before they ever sweeten.

Like Fremen said, when I do cave and buy them from the supermarket I have to cover them in sugar and let them soak it up for a few days in the fridge before I can eat them. Even then, their pale insides constantly remind me that I'm eating something unnatural.

We have to do something about this. Really! Fruits and vegetables of my youth are getting more and more difficult to find. I'm so afraid my grandchildren (when I get them) will grow up never knowing what a real strawberry or blueberry tastes like and worse, never knowing there is anything wrong with the fruit they eat.

 

For the most part, all we get in the stores here are giant California types. However, when they are in season you can also get Korean and Japanese strawberries. The Japanese ones are the best but cost a bomb, so I rarely buy them (the Japanese know how to grow very tasty fruit). The Korean strawberries are not as expensive and come the closest to tasting like I remember strawberries should taste.

The best ones I've ever had were wild strawberries that I found growing in the woods near my cottage in the Ottawa Valley. Very small but very tasty.

 

The best ones are the ones picked off the plant in my backyard

 

When we lived in Venice, we used to walk down the street every Sunday to the Santa Monica farmer's market, where you could get organic strawberries, locally grown on farms without any chemical intervention whatsoever, from seed to plant to berry. They were, indeed, usually smaller than the average supermarket berry, and usually a darker red. And they were amazing. Unbelievably sweet and succulent. A pleasure to eat plain, or marinated in a little mead and Grand Marnier, or made into shockingly intense homemade strawberry sorbet or ice cream. We would also occasionally juice them, for a deep scarlet, sugar-syrup crush, fantastic on its own or as a base for cocktails, spritzers, or sweet-and-hot sauces for poultry or lamb dishes.

 

Picked some up at the Farmers Market in Bury St. Edmunds (England) and they were Plump, Sweet, and Juicy. Independent growers definitely know what they're doing!

 

The best ones I have had are the Klicker Strawberries from Walla Walla - they are relatively local here as in only two or so hours away and taste just as good if you buy the frozen variety.
We ordered their product through Sysco at my last job where I was a cook and I usually had one or two at least when they were on the menu. Have had not too many strawberries around here the past few years though as my five year has an allergic reaction to them and gets a bad case of hives. But she does know that she can only have "fake strawberries" (the term we told her early on for artificially flavoured) and if anything is overly cautious when it comes to avoiding them, which is likely a good thing in this case.

 

I put 3 strawberry plants into my little patio garden the other day, so I'm hoping they bear some yummy fruit after reading this thread!

I do buy the giant strawberries from the store, though - I've found that if I make effort to sort through them and find some that are just right in terms of level of ripeness, they actually *are* red all the way through and tend to taste better. Of course, it helps that they are coming into season!

 

When we lived in NC, there was a berry patch down the road that grew the best berries I've ever had. My mom and I would get a flat and eat one in a couple of days.

I buy them from the store but not too often because they just aren't that good. I'll cook them into a sauce for pancakes or something rather than eating them plain. It's funny...my son told me the other day we should ask my dad if he'll share some of his garden dirt with us so we can grow some of our own berries at his house since we don't have the necessary sun to grow them on our porch. He's only 10 but he already knows that Pop's (my dad) strawberries are better than the ones at the store.