Ahh, June

by Gustav

“She….lunched in solitary bliss, with a smile for the dry Vouvray and for the June strawberries, served, with their stalks, on a plate of Rubelles enamel as green as a tree-frog after rain.”
Colette, Cheri

"Toujours strawberries and cream."
Samuel Johnson

“Look at my new socks, Goostoff!” Jocelyn is one of the cherubim who visits me on the weekend.  She appears to have leapt from a Carl Larsson watercolor, with the bluest eyes and the blondest curls, her cheeks like a blush on porcelain. She’s about three, now, and I look forward to her visits every Saturday morning, though she doesn’t know that.  Her parents do, and graciously indulge me.  Her socks are brightest raspberry.  “Those are some wonderful socks, darlin’, and you look wonderful in them.  How ‘bout a strawberry?”  Her eyes widen even more as I offer her the biggest specimen.  She is delighted, and thanks me graciously, augmenting my enjoyment in the whole transaction. She observes the deepest crimson, heart-shaped berry with its convenient green handle thoughtfully as she polishes it off.  

Jocelyn doesn’t yet know about politics and pesticides (the berry I have given her is, of course, organic: we do the best we can). Nor is she aware of the strawberry’s checkered reputation in the world of art and horticulture.  I know a little about that stuff, but prefer her unfettered indulgence, trying to savor the moment these days.  You can learn a lot from the enthusiastic and uncomplicated heart of a three-year-old if you pay attention.

Etymologists can’t quite say how the strawberry got its name, but some speculate that the berry’s runners resemble straws (from the Anglo-Saxon streaw, akin to strew). Also, it has long been a custom to mulch strawberries with straw, to keep the weeds down, the soil damp and to prevent the earth from soiling the berries.  There was also a custom of stringing strawberries on straws and selling them for so much per straw, as people did at one time with onions.  No matter how they got their name, we know that they’ve always been deemed a pretty special commodity—both Ovid and Virgil called the wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca) the “Queen of Fruits.”  I remember coming across a patch of them on one of those endless sultry June afternoons, in a vast vacant field, about forty years ago, and wondering how they bore up in the heat.  They were the essence of all strawberries to follow- little explosions of flavor, warm and liquid and bursting in the relentless sunshine.  If you can find those tiny, wild specimens enjoy them all alone, à la Colette, or with just a dollop of crème fraiche or drizzle of cream. 

The bigger, cultivated guys (Fragaria ananassa, a member of the Rosaceae family) now have over a thousand varieties.  “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless he never did.” Samuel Butler said that.  Historically, our favorite berry has gone in and out of vogue, and has been viewed from radically diverse perspectives. It has been portrayed as the symbol of deities “as disparate as the Virgin Mary and Frigga, the Teutonic love goddess.”  At one time the ternary leaves represented the Holy Trinity; later, in Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights”, the berry symbolizes worldly and carnal pleasures. The hideous monsters gorge on them, and strawberries even become parts of their grotesque bodies.  At times they have been eaten surreptitiously, deemed a hedonistic, spendthrift indulgence (their perishable nature has always made them a little steam, and the delicious summer experience of strawberry juice running down your chin is undeniably sensual).  Henry VIII adored them and feasted on them at court, and later on Victorian horticulturists crossbred them obsessively, aspiring to imbue them with the taste of other fruits.  We think of Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries” and that ravishing scene from Polanski’s “Tess”….

Nowadays we try to eat only organic strawberries. Also, if you can, wait for local strawberries. Buy from a local farmstand on a summer morning from some freckled, hard working folks. They’ll be much more delicious than those flown in from somewhere, I guarantee.  I have given Jocelyn a big fat organic berry, and she deferentially asks for another…I would want to indulge her were she ask for another sport’s car… 

Strawberries both wild and cultivated are perhaps most heavenly when served with cream in its various manifestations.  I think now of one of those “coffee table” cookbooks that I used to buy, with their highly stylized foodie photos.  There was one picture of “Fraises Romanoff” which the photographer had caught through a gauzy bluish light on perfectly rumpled linen, and there were three crystallized violets on the lavishly piped whipped cream.  Yup.  My battered old black Escoffier Cook Book has several variations on the “Romanoff” theme; those pages are tinted a pale pink now.  “Fraises Romanoff” is simply strawberries macerated in an orange liqueur for awhile and served with crème Chantilly, or softly whipped lightly sweetened cream.  You can use Monsieur Escoffiers’s recommended Curaçao, Grand Marnier, Cointreau or the juice of a good orange. (I like the subtle sophistication of Cointreau.) Whatever you choose, exercise a little restraint with the orange, for crying out loud.  The marriage of strawberry and orange is a happy one, but too often people get carried away with their Grand Marnier, like they do with cinnamon on an innocent apple dessert. If your berries are good and ripe enough, they will form their own syrup soon enough with the addition of a mere wisp of sugar or a little honey.  Just remember to slice them far enough ahead so that they can get their juices flowing.  And leave them out at room temperature.  When selecting strawberries, look for deep crimson ones with no dark spots or white shoulders.  Their aroma should smell deeply of a sweet summer day.

There are no better strawberry memories for me than those of the Matriarch’s shortcake, which was my birthday cake for several years. The convenience of a June birthday! I suspect that a lot of country people hold their mom’s shortcake in such high esteem.  Hers was perfectly artless, and perfect.  The berries, usually homegrown, had to macerate all afternoon, with a little sugar only if they were considered tart.  The cake was a large biscuit split and buttered right out of the oven.  There would be a luxuriant cumulus of whipped cream, made with minimal sugar and good vanilla. One year there was shortcake made with five quarts of homegrown berries on the biggest ironstone platter.  Somehow the biscuit was still crunchy, here and there, even as it was saturated, sodden, with red juice.  The subtle sourness of the biscuit, the inherent sweetness of unrefrigerated berries, and the velvet drift of cream.  Together, perfection.  A sultry June night with all the windows open, the lawn freshly mown, and the rumble of thunder in the west.  Even more whipped cream if you wanted, and a twitter from the nesting wrens on the back porch, and laughter…. 

Later, in my chefly days, I would make a lot of strawberry desserts with Zabaglione (in French Sabayon), that frothy custard of egg yolks, sugar and dry Marsala. I’d serve it in tall glasses with biscotti and toasted almonds, or with a couple of lemony madeleines.  Then there was an era of fruit tartes, with shatteringly crisp almond crusts, cool and suave vanilla pastry cream, and sparkling glazed berries. The strawberry is the best berry to sit on that sort of tarte, I think.  Still later, I’d make tiramisù at certain times of the year, and in so doing discovered a favorite way for serving strawberries. The filling for my jiggly, almost amorphous tiramisù is composed of some zabaglione, a little loosely whipped cream and some mascarpone, and beaten a little ‘til it is as pliant and smooth as only mascarpone can be.  For the tiramisù you would layer this filling between discs of espresso-soaked Italian sponge cake (pane di spagna) that I insisted on making myself.  (Less obsessive characters use ladyfingers or bought sponge cake.  But my cake layers would only support so much filling and I always had a little extra, which I would dollop onto a little bowl of sliced strawberries and give to a favorite waitress or garde manger guy.  This combination became so popular that in time I said enough already with the then-ubiquitous tiramisù and just served strawberries in that manner.  No one complained.

Mascarpone, like ricotta, is not really a cheese, but cow cream that has been lightly acidulated and allowed to drain through cheesecloth until it forms a silken mass, something like our Devonshire cream or crème fraiche. It’s really my favorite accouterment for strawberries if you don’t count the aforementioned crème Chantilly. It originated, like many sublime foodstuffs, in Lombardia, up near the Italian Alps, in the 16^th century.  Perhaps it got its name from the Spanish “mas que buono” (“better than good”) or maybe from the mountain dialect expression for ricotta, “maschera”, which it resembles somewhat.  It is palest blond, about one shade lighter than my Jocelyn’s towhead.  It has become integral to tiramisù, the omnipresent “pick me up” dessert, but its delicacy demands little more than a few berries to shine.  In the Friuli region people make a savory spread with it and mustard, anchovies or herbs.  Nice on your crustiest loaf of Tuscan bread.  In Milan and Manhattan some people layer it with gorgonzola dolce, or basil leaves and pignoli, or even white truffles (yeah!) and create “torte di mascarpone”.  These are over-the-top and impossible to resist (or to cut neatly). They make an opulent and instant pasta sauce when folded into hot tagliatelle.  Mascarpone is also used to enrich and thicken risotti, and you can dab it onto fresh figs and run them under the broiler and be very happy.  Those elegant northern Italians also serve it simply with a little grated chocolate, cocoa, cinnamon, and just a sprinkle of sugar.  That’s the way some folks serve their ricotta- try it sometime with our hand-ladled version. If you have the inclination and the time and want to make my zany tiramisù filling-cum- strawberry accompaniment, remember never to overbeat your mascarpone-it will curdle unpleasantly if you do.  As a matter of fact, don’t overbeat anything- your Zabaglione gets gummy and your cream will turn to butter and whey. Yuck.  Remember, too, the rule of “Like into Like”: have your custard, whipped cream and mascarpone at approximately the same consistency and temperature.  You never fold an ethereal meringue into a sludgy, lava-like mass of custard or chocolate- you lighten the base of your mousse with a portion of meringue and then all will fold together smoothly.  Here, you want three subtly flavored zephyrs to drift together in a luxuriant mass.  All you need is your bowl of berries, a sprig of mint, and some people you love. And you don’t even need the mint.

Simpler, but classy: just sweeten you mascarpone with a little vanilla sugar and surround it with some rinsed and patted-dry berries.

Look for good organic local berries that smell of early summer memories.  Our produce department offers just that.  We offer an excellent Italian mascarpone in convenient little 250 g. containers and have lately stocked a version from the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company.  Our grocery department has a great selection of organic cream; HABA has the aromatic and pliant vanilla beans that you need for vanilla sugar, and our bulk department has a variety of almonds.

You can embellish your strawberries as you like, but you also might try Jocelyn’s method.  The delights of the earth don’t necessarily need subtext, cream or green enamel.  It’s nice to be aware of your choices, and then return, eventually, to the simplest of them all.