I sliced strawberries with all my attention. They were particularly fine ones, large and white clear through without a hint of pink. Wild Borderland strawberries are one of the Border’s little jokes. They form bright red, and fade as they ripen. No strawberry has ever been so sweet. — Orient in Emma Bull’s Finder — A Novel of the Borderland
We asked lots of folks during one recent High Summer how they ate strawberries. The answers were certainly tasty!
Camille Alexa
Easy – combine with other seasonal berries into a rich, sweet flummery. Pour cold cream onto hot flummery & eat. Mmmmm.
Peter S. Beagle
Strawberry margaritas, I guess. I’ve never been a big strawberry fan, though I love blueberries. And I’m utterly unreliable about grapes, even though I KNOW I should leave some for everybody else. What I especially love are tangeloes, though they’re here for such a short season, like us…
Elizabeth Bear
Eat them. *g*
Pamela Dyer-Bennet
Watching wistfully while other people eat them with whipped cream. On the whole I’ve adapted well to giving up dairy, but I’ve never gotten over having to stop eating whipped cream with strawberries. This is mostly just havering, though. Strawberries are very good dipped in a little brown sugar.
JSS Boyce
When I lived on the coast of China, right around the borderline between North- and South-, (a) strawberry season actually began in December. On nearly every street corner you could buy a stick with several plump candy strawberries. With no core and a more manageable size for biting, they put our more familiar hard candy apples to shame. For that matter, there were candy lychees, too.
Tobias Buckell
Pie!
Emma Bull
Mmmmmm, strawberries. When I was a kid my mom and I would go to the pick-your-own strawberry farm and bring back pounds of them. So much sweeter than store-bought! Then, of course, my mom would have to spend hours at the sink with the strawberry huller, preparing them for the freezer. But when she was done, we could have strawberry shortcake, made with biscuit dough, in the dead of winter, and it tasted like June.
Kelley Caspari
1. This sounds odd but is actually tasty – toss the strawberries in high quality balsalmic vinegar (the syrupy-sweet kind) and sprinkle with fresh cracked black pepper. The tangy/spicy/sweetness of the vinegar and pepper makes the strawberry flavor seem even more intense.
2. Drop them into a glass of champagne so you can admire them in a sparkly environment before devouring.
3. I have to agree, they’re best fresh from the garden! (preferably while standing there in the sunshine)
Denise Dutton added
Kelley, I’m also a big fan of watching ‘em bob up & down in a flute of champagne. I’ve even been known to slightly mash a piece or two to flavor things up a bit. Sounds really good right about now, in fact. 
Faith J. Cormier from News Brunswick says
True North Shore treat – mashed with lots of brown sugar, nothing else.
Connor Cochran
Pick them, wash them, and eat them right in the field. That’s the best.
Ellen Datlow
I put them in my organic yogurt for lunch (although I DO love strawberry
smoothies, too
Richard Dansky
Strawberry-kiwi sorbet. Or possibly strawberry lemonade.
Denise Dutton
When I think strawberries, I think of the huge garden my parents kept when I was a kid. They both grew up on farms, so we grew just about everything, including three rows of strawberries that always popped up before anything else. And when the weather started to warm up nicely, the box turtles would come by and have a munch. My mom, always frightened of anything moving in the garden, would scream for me and I’d come running…only to plop myself down next to the turtle and offer him or her the rest of the berry that the turtle had been working on. To make the turtle feel like it was a guest rather than an interloper, I’d eat a few too. Oh sure, ultimately I’d move the turtle so my mom wouldn’t have apoplexy in the asparagus, but ever since then? When I see strawberries I think of turtle picnics. And I eat ‘em plain, held by the stem, even now.
Jim Frenkel
Pie, and shortcake.
Christopher Golden
Shortcake!
April Gutierrez
Macerate them and serve them over homemade shortbread…
Liz Hand
Strawberry rhubarb crisp! Also, just eating them fresh from the farm. Our little church across the road here in the Center has an Annual Strawberry Festival, and I’ll get strawberry shortcake there next Saturday. Many years ago, my former partner Richard Grant made May wine using sweet woodruff we’d grown, white wine (or was it champgane?) and fresh strawberries. THAT was great. I should do it again someday …
James Hetley
We (well, Wife does the hard part) almost always turn strawberries into strawberry shortcake, with sour cream dolloped on top. Which reminds me . .
Gwyneth Jones
Eat them, No fuss, no fancywork, just walk out into the garden and eat them, ideally straight off the plant and warmed by the sun. Unfortunately, the squirrels got most of ours this year They seem only just to have discovered that they like strawberries and are making up for lost time. However, I know a few discreet sunny banks around the South Downs, where wild strawbetties flouristh.
Sharyn November, Senior Editor of Viking Children’s Books and Editorial Director of the most excellent Firebird Books
I wash and top them. Then I roll the strawberries around in a dish of sugar and eat them. That’s it!
Phil Odgers
Jam of course
Tim Pratt
I mostly eat them right off the tree. Our plums are ripe, and the cherries and apples aren’t far behind. (Okay, so I don’t eat the lemons straight off the tree. Those mostly get used for the improvement of margaritas.)
Cherie Priest
Dunk ‘em in Cool Whip and nom ‘em.
Kestrell Rath
Our strawberry season is almost over, as it began and peaked early this year.
My housemates and my favorite thing to do with our strawberries is actually to invite random people to come pick some. We live in the middle of a city, and our strawberry bed is our front yard, so people often ring our doorbell and express shock that fruit is growing a few feet from the sidewalk. We get a lot of people who have never picked their own fruit before, and the occasional adult telling their kids that they should never eat something growing from the ground (???).
During the peak weeks, one of my housemates makes strawberry jam, and then saves it as a pick-me-up for the darkest days of winter. The best dessert choice still seems to be the classic strawberry shortcake. Oh, and one of my housemates makes a strawberry bread which is totally amazing. I can ask her for the recipe if you wish.
Kelly Sedinger
One of my favorite sandwiches: thick, whole grain bread, cream cheese, and sliced strawberries.
Delia Sherman
Strawberry-rhubarb pie. Or I macerate them in a little sugar (a couple teaspoons to a cup of sliced berries) and a splash of something like Cointreau or Kirsch and eat with yoghurt. Or ice cream. Or mereingues (however you spell them).
Jo Sherman
Eat ‘em!
Will Shetterly
Rinse, hold by the stem, eat. Easy!
Jennifer Stevenson
This summer queen is still (!) having hot flashes, so she likes to hull ‘em, freeze ‘em, and throw ‘em in a blender with some coconut milk and a little sweetener. Instant ice cream! You can also use actual cream. Or Greek yogurt. Mmmmmm..
Robert M. Tilendis
1. With chocolate ice cream, or
2. On pancakes with yogurt
Green Man Culinary Editor Joseph Thompson says that he loves the illicit aspect of that lushest of fruits.
In high school I used to pick wild strawberries and then cook them down — I reserved the liquid for my bong (and only smoked the best KB). Now days I pass on the puff, but I make a killer strawberry wine. When I was a child, my mother used to make some extra money taking orders from friends and family members for quarts of fresh picked strawberries. There was one year we picked 110 pounds in a week…
Gary Whitehouse
1. Dip ‘em in hot fudge and eat ‘em, one at a time.
2. Slice and serve on waffles with yogurt and honey. Preferably chocolate waffles!
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