S is for Summer Strawberries

It is summer in Minnesota and we’re all anxious for the start of the strawberry season. We’ll have to be patient a bit more as the season will be starting later than usual.

What is it about picking strawberries that makes so many yearn for the start of the season?

  • Is it the joy of eating fresh picked, field ripened, juicy sweet strawberries?
  • Is it your memories from childhood or that special person you used to pick berries with?
  • Is it because of the amazing desserts, jams and jellies you make after a morning picking?
  • Is it because you are making memories of your own so that when your children and grandchildren are grown a summer morning will remind them of you?

So many possibilities. For me it is all of the above.

I grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota.ย When the strawberries were ready, weโ€™d go out in the morning, the warm summer breezes wafting through the air, the heat lingering around us. Weโ€™d pick, together, my mom, my grandma, my brothers and I. And the fruit, oh my, sweet goodness.

We ate a lot of them fresh, on ice cream, on our morning Cherrios, on home-made angel food cake with whip cream. My mom taught me how to make strawberry jam; we froze them in pint bags to eat during the winter over ice cream or on cake. It was a blessing to have more than we could eat in summer, because during a Minnesota winter those berries reminded us of summers past and a hope that summer was ahead.

How about you? ย Why do you like strawberry season?

 

 

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