Fruit of Good Fortune

The J.M. Smucker Co., a founding sponsor of the California Strawberry Festival Saturday and Sunday in Oxnard, probably would wish to disclaim any responsibility for one of the popular fruit’s newfound--and truly obscure--properties.

The World Wide Web has a site explaining how to make a blowtorch from a Kellogg’s Strawberry Pop-Tart with real Smucker’s fruit, using only the pastry and your toaster. Apparently it has something to do with jamming the thing in the toaster, until flames literally begin to shoot out of the pastry. That’s what I call Yankee ingenuity, but since it would be incendiary journalism to say anything further on the subject, feel free to find the Web page without official help.

Personally, I plan to put my strawberries in a good pie crust.

It was back in my college days that I began my love affair with the astringently sweet berry. I grew up within shouting distance of the cranberry bogs of Massachusetts, and during childhood, my exposure to strawberries was limited to jam, ice cream and jujubes. It was during an introductory film class that I first saw the Ingmar Bergman classic “Wild Strawberries” starring Victor Sjostrom. In the summer of ‘70, I traveled to Sweden, with visions of red berries dancing inside my head.

Soon foraging the Swedish countryside for smaltron, the Swedish word for wild strawberries, became a daily ritual for me. In the evening, when the weather was cool, I feasted on my bounty with densely whipped Swedish cream procured from a farm just outside Stockholm. Nothing from the hand of any chef or grandmother could possibly surpass the pleasure derived from those pale red, thimble-sized berries of my youth, but a basket of fresh Ventura County strawberries comes awfully close.

Just what is this beloved red fruit we celebrate this weekend, and how did Ventura County become a strawberry mecca? The recipe involves a dash of destiny, an understanding of history and plain good fortune. The lush, opulent California strawberry is the fruit of planned evolution, perilous adventure, great botanical minds, intrepid farmers and clever businessmen.

Food historian Raymond Sokolov, writing in his seminal “Why We Eat What We Eat,” said it best: “The strawberry epitomizes the international hybrid history of foods we now take for granted.” The history of the fruit can be summed up thusly.

In the early part of the 18th century, wild strawberries were the only ones Europeans knew. The herbaceous perennials grew in loamy fields, or in Alpine regions, where the tiny berry was carried on a slightly higher stalk. Encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot, in an oft-quoted phrase, described the strawberries of his era as being like the “tip of a wet nurse’s breast.”

Then in 1712, a French naval officer named Frezier (from which we get fraise--the French word for strawberry) smuggled a type of strawberry known as the sand strawberry (fragaria chiloensis) from the Chilean coast back to Europe. Frezier gave his plunder to the famous French botanist Bernard de Jussieu, who subsequently bred them for the court, dazzling the royals in the process.

In the latter part of the 18th century, though, the real breakthrough was made. It was around the time of the French Revolution that the botanist Duchesne crossbred these berries with another strawberry from the New World (fragaria virginia), producing large, sweet berries, bursting with juice. And voila, the strawberry craze was born, resulting in the fruit eventually being brought back to these shores for more serious cultivation.

At the turn of this century, a breed known as the Shasta strawberry was born in California, a plump, large berry similar in color and texture to many of the varietals of California strawberries today. California, it turns out, with its warm sunny days and cool foggy nights, has just what it takes to make a terrific strawberry. That’s why it is no accident that, according to Christina Glynn of the California Strawberry Commission, approximately 80% of the country’s strawberries are grown in our state.

The Oxnard area is especially blessed, even though it took until the mid ‘50s for it to jump on the agricultural bandwagon. Oxnard is classified as one of five growing regions in California, the others being Watsonville-Salinas, Santa Maria, San Diego and Orange County. Strawberries in Ventura County have grown from a yard-sized industry--a paltry seven acres in 1935--to the $120-million plus (from a statewide crop estimated at $608 million for 1996) and multi-thousand-acre business it is today.

What gives California such a huge advantage over other states is our long growing season. Today, says Glynn, “You can eat top quality California berries from February to November.” This year, according to Glynn, Ventura County growers will harvest 22 million trays of the fruit, each tray (or flat, the terms are interchangeable) containing 12 one-pint baskets. How many Pop-Tarts do you suppose that is?

Let’s think of strawberries in nutritional terms instead. First off, the strawberry is what is known as a “false fruit.” The actual fruit is the seed, while the ovary is the berry’s red flesh. Strawberries contain moderately high amounts of sugar, no starch, pectin and the noncarbohydrate fiber lignin, found in the tiny seeds that dot the surface of the berry. The red pigment anthocyanin gives the berry its bright red color, and the pigment is heat sensitive, which is why strawberries turn brown when they are heated too quickly.

Strawberries also contain potassium, lots of vitamin C and relatively few calories. Ounce for ounce they contain 24% more vitamin C than fresh orange juice, and eight medium-size strawberries add up to around 9 grams of fiber and 50 calories, well within Cindy Crawford’s daily maximum intake.

Choosing the best strawberry is an art form; like wine tasting it requires a good eye, a good nose and good sense. Driscoll’s, one of the best-known growers, recommends choosing strawberries that are shiny, firm and very fragrant. To that I would add the adjectives scarlet and plump, also pointing out that the fruit is best when the little green plugs look fresh as well. Skip berries that are moldy, or berries that lack fragrance. Also pass on berries that have an excessive patch of whiteness near the stem.

If you live in Ventura County, you probably have a favorite strawberry stand already. Bob Jones Ranch is one of the largest growers in the county, at 250 acres, and contracts out most of its crop. Nonetheless, the ranch maintains a small stand just outside the main fields, on Oxnard’s Vineyard Avenue.

Shopping for them in supermarkets, however, is dicey, especially since berries are increasingly being bred for shipping life rather than for taste. One of my English friends insists that the reason strawberries are so good in his home country is directly related to the English shopper’s insistence that there be a date on every box. “In England,” says my friend, “if a box of strawberries is more than two days old, the supermarket throws them away.”

Well, maybe. But as I ate my succulent, sweet-tart Chandler strawberries at a Victoria Avenue fruit stand, I wasn’t a bit jealous for Wimbledon, until the proprietor began to get wistful on me. “The money is all in shipping nowadays,” he told me, looking skyward, “and pretty soon you won’t even be able to get Chandlers around here.”

An allusion to yet another controversy. A new hybrid called the Camarosa is fast becoming the strawberry of choice for local growers, chiefly because it can be exported to places like Canada, Mexico and Japan with more dependability. The fruit vendor explained that certain breeds come and go, because strains get progressively weaker with subsequent generations. New varieties are continually being developed throughout the world, to please an ever restless marketplace. “Have you had the Camarosa?” the grower asked me. “They look beautiful,” he said, “but they taste like squash.”

I can’t say that, but I have heard variant claims about this new hybrid. We are sure that it grows fast and has a distressingly long shelf life. One local aficionado told me she likes the berry because it has a stronger berry flavor and is not as “squishy” as the Chandler variety. Someone else remarked that the new berry represents a “new low in tastelessness.”

Whatever the predilection, this is the height of the season, and it’s time to plan that perfect shortcake, smoothie or fruit salad. Personally I like my strawberries straight, maybe with a little heavy cream or possibly marinated in a good Italian red wine, like a Chianti or Barolo.

Remember not to rinse your strawberries after you have removed the plug at the bottom, as they will become waterlogged, not to overwhelm them with too much sugar and certainly do not attempt to set them on fire, in or out of the Toastmaster.

DETAILS

* WHAT:The Oxnard Strawberry Festival.

* WHEN: Saturday and Sunday.

* WHERE: At the Strawberry Meadows of College Park, 3250 S. Rose Avenue, Oxnard.

* HOW MUCH: Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for children 2-12 and seniors older than 65.

* FYI: In 1995, the festival attracted more than 60,000 visitors.