Strawberry season: a matter of time
April may be the cruelest month, but talk to local strawberry growers and they'll assure you that May runs a close second. Unseasonably cool, wet springs in recent years have the season in flux. This May, it was the rain that left farmers guessing.
One of the things they were wondering was when native strawberries would get enough sun to ripen. "Until the late 1980s and early 1990s, we could hang our hats by when the strawberries would come in," says Nate Benjamin Jr., general manager and winemaker at Charlton Orchards in Charlton, who recalls the season starting as early as Memorial Day weekend. "It's been complicated to be a strawberry grower in the past 10 years."
But native berries are ready to pick -- and worth the wait. While you may have been slicing fresh berries onto your morning cereal in past months, those red fruits were flown in from California. Massachusetts lags behind California in production, but it's no contest when it comes to taste. Local strawberries win every time. "We don't have the technology to pick something that's perfectly ripe and keep it at its peak," says Benjamin. "That's why fruits and vegetables you see at the store are almost always harvested before their prime. When you pick strawberries at a local farm, you're picking at the peak of ripeness."
As luck would have it, the last couple weeks in May included a stretch of warm, sun-filled days, just the kind of weather strawberry plants crave. "Plants have a unique ability to catch up when they have to," says Benjamin.
Most pick-your-own farms in the state will open their fields this Saturday. The best time of day to go is morning, before the sun gets hot and the crowds arrive. Ripe berries are plump and fully red -- bypass those with patches of white or green. Twist berries off the plant from the stem, leaving the hulls intact, and let the berries roll gently into your palm. To prevent bruising, pile strawberries in your container no higher than five inches. The longer berries stay in the sun after picking, the faster they'll deteriorate, so race them home to your refrigerator rather than stopping for heavy cream -- which to be honest, is gilding the lily here.
Only when you're ready to use them, rinse the berries, then hull them. Strawberries rapidly turn to mush once they've been washed. They'll keep for two or three days in the refrigerator, and while you may be able to eat them past that time, they'll feel a bit soft and weepy, and won't have that glossy crimson glow.
They'll still taste better than the berries with the frequent flier miles. 