It’s become very fashionable to make a big statement about eating “locally” and “seasonally” but many of us have been doing this as a matter of common sense for years. Strawberries, for example; obviously they are available year round but how to compare a January strawberry that arrives in the grocery store pale, tired and grumbly from all that travelling with the sweet, deeply red jewels we’re savoring this month?

(And, unlike their winter counterparts, these summer fellows do not have the unfortunate texture of a raw potato).

Even within the (almost daily, I confess) samplings of strawberries that I have been eating there’s a wide swoon factor between local and really local; these are the almost black-red, luscious little pillows that have no hint of tartness and adding cream or cake or anything else seems to impinge on their pure, clean taste.

There’s nothing like them is there?
I have many memories surrounding strawberries too: there’s the obvious association with Wimbledon when we would douse ours in a goodly glug of champagne, (the idea of which is more pleasing than the result, by the way); as a young child, I would visit a retired older man at the end of the street who grew his own and he would carefully pluck a handful out from beneath the actual straw mulch, tumble them into my hands still warm from the sun and I would sit on his step and eat them reverently, noticing the extra sprinkle of yellow seeds that uniform store-bought berries did not have. I also recall admiring the fact that many resembled tiny flattened turbans instead of the usual heart shape. The taste was – divine.

There would also be fat over sized strawberries to dip in chocolate fondues (I’m looking at you, 1983) strawberry jams (sometimes with rhubarb, sometimes not) frozen strawberry daiquiris to be sipped whilst floating about swimming pools, strawberry shortcakes and in the British “cafs” foamy, whipped strawberry fools.

I have read with amusement too about the ‘maceration process’ of strawberries sometimes adding black pepper or balsamic vinegar or even liqueurs like Grand Marnier.

Basically though, it’s what everyone’s mother has been doing for generations: slicing strawberries roughly into a bowl, (using that one all purpose knife) sprinkling lightly with sugar and walking away. Later the berries will have made their own syrup which they have been steeping in. This is Old school maceration.

I’ve been steeping myself in all things UK at the moment with all the Brexit foreboding and feeling very unsettled and sad about the whole business.

So if this seems like a frivolous blog entry, it’s not. It’s just that I’m distracting myself the best and only way I can with small and familiar pleasures to look forward to. That’s it.