I think it's high time we sat down for a serious talk about strawberries.
let us assume that you are not one of the three people ever who doesn't
like strawberries and that you are likewise not allergic to
strawberries. you want some strawberries. this is good. eating strawberries is an important sacrament at the first church of dirt and one of the easiest to participate in. however, it is not well-known among the laity that a hierarchy exists among various strawberries' appropriateness for inclusion in this sacrament.
at the bottom of that hierarchy, the least appropriate, we've got strawberries that look like this:
so delicious, right? wrong. the species is Fragaria x ananassa, the variety is Chandler or another mass market cultivar, they were grown in California, they are most likely contaminated with both pesticides and herbicides harmful to health. perhaps most importantly, they aren't ripe so they don't taste good. these are the strawberries available at grocery stores. commercial strawberries are bred primarily for their ability to maintain a good appearance during extensive shipping; taste barely enters the equation. as these are the only strawberries a large percentage of folks have ever tasted, it's a surprise that so many still like strawberries.
one small step up, commercial strawberries also come in an USDA-certified organic version. these are better than conventionally-grown strawberries, but only because they lack the high levels of toxic chemical residue and the pollution associated with it. this is not inconsequential, but the resource intensive growing, transporting, and marketing is equivalent and sometimes worse than strawberries not labeled organic. they, like the above, were probably grown in a field that looked like this:
each year, the plants are replaced, requiring soil-damaging tillage and new plastic mulch.
better by far than the previous two options* are locally grown strawberries. they will most likely still be garden strawberries (Fragaria x ananassa), but the variety will be something like Tristar or Seascape or any of a large number of other excellent options. being the same species, or the same cross of two species, these strawberries are very similar in appearance to commercial strawberries. but, being produced for local consumption, the focus of breeding will have been flavor instead of appearance and long-keeping. whereas commercial strawberries
really need brown sugar and sour cream to be palatable, local
strawberries taste like they've got the sugar already on them. whether these are grown at home, picked at a u-pick farm, or purchased from a small farm or farmer's market, they will be very satisfying.
the garden strawberry's main drawback is the short length of it's productive life: two or three years at best. this requires pretty near constant replacement of plants. extra work, yes, but more importantly: extra tillage. frequent disturbance has many negative effects on dirt, and so should be avoided.
the solution is a strawberry with a much longer productive life, the woodland or alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca):
plants sometimes weaken after a few years, but this is avoided if simple steps are taken to maintain soil fertility. alpine strawberries do suffer from small size, but make up for it in taste: more delicious than even the best garden strawberries.
even tastier than alpine strawberries are musk strawberries (Fragaria moschata):
an adequate description of the taste is beyond me, but they are incredible. similarly long-lived, musk strawberries are day-length sensitive: they produce a brief (but heavy) crop in June into July (in the Northern hemisphere) and sometimes another in the fall. while garden strawberries are completely spent after three years, musk strawberries are much more productive from the third year on. they're also much easier to pick. the berries are borne in clusters on flowering stalks rather than singly and often hidden under leaves like garden strawberries. musk strawberries do require two varieties for pollination, though, but that's not such a very big problem. both musk and alpine strawberries produce well in shade or sun. deep forest shade won't do, but bright shade is sufficient.
one other possibility is the strawberry native to the first church of dirt's neighborhood, the beach strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis):
while collecting strawberries from wild plants enhances the sacrament tremendously, this species is also widely used in private and public landscaping. unfortunately, these plants produce only a very few of their excellent berries in a season.
these four options are all appropriate for the strawberry sacrament. a commonly cited drawback is actually an asset: they do not age well. the quality of the strawberry experience is greatly and quickly diminished by time from harvest. ideally less than five seconds from harvest to mouth, this time should be kept under an hour. processing the strawberries is one exception, but that is an entirely different sacrament and will be dealt with at another time.
*the strawberries discussed from this point onward are suitable for the sacrament. there exist other suitable species that are not mentioned, but they are quite rare.
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