At Clearly Scrumptious we love strawberries! What fruit evokes a British Summer time more? Hard to imagine on a day like today with the rain battering our office windows.
But did you know strawberries aren’t actually berries at all? Berries should always have the seeds on the inside but typically a strawberry has over 200 seeds dotted on the outside that gives them their characteristic appearance. So if they are not berries what are they? Well, they are called accessory fruits because of the way in which they grow.
More than 40 species of strawberries have been identified in the wild. Wild strawberries are all fairly small in size, and it wasn’t until the 18th century that attempts to produce strawberry plants with larger berries were successful.
These days one acre of farm land planted with strawberry plants can produce up to 20,000 Kg of strawberries. And because they are perennials once they are planted they should grow back every year.
Traditionally to preserve strawberries they were candied with sugar to dry them out but we now use apple juice in our Sweet Strawberries to make them last longer. We also don’t use sulphur dioxide which was traditionally used to keep the bright red colour in the strawberries so you will find that our fruits are naturally a bit darker in colour.
We also don’t use sulphur dioxide which was traditionally used to keep the bright red colour in the strawberries so you will find that our fruits are naturally a bit darker in colour.
By all accounts, if you break a double strawberry in half the person you share it with will fall in love…
Rick and James x
