Strawberry Memories: A Snapshot From Childhood
Standing in the supermarket last night, I noticed that a new shipment of fresh strawberries had just arrived and were now on sale... so I had to get some!
Seeing and smelling them there made me briefly go "time traveling" back to my early childhood...
It's Almost Strawberry Season!
Me, aged six, with my strawberry sandwiches
I've always loved fresh strawberries-- this old photo shows a slightly grumpy me in June of 1966 (aged almost six-- I hated having my picture taken!) having strawberry sandwiches, out on our porch. I loved the fresh berries so much I would ask my mother to slice them up and put them on bread and butter sandwiches.
It was my favorite summer thing.
We had our own large kitchen garden, which included several long rows of strawberry plants. As the month of June rolled around, I would regularly check the plants to see if any of the berries were starting to turn red... but the end of the month, we'd be overflowing with juicy ripe sweet berries.
There is Nothing as Good as Home Grown...
I had fresh strawberries on my cereal, this morning... because it IS-- after all-- about to be strawberry season.
Sadly, the store bought strawberries don't taste nearly as good as the ones I remember from decades ago.
Peaceful path through the woods... to the past
And that's not just "my imagination." Most of today's strawberries aren't grown for amazing flavor so much as to be pretty and red, and large... and to be of such a "nature" that they can be picked before they are ripe and shipped around the country. They have to be able to last a while on store shelves... and they have to be firm-- to the point of almost being "crisp"-- so they don't get smashed and crushed during transportation.
We can't get the strawberries of my childhood at the supermarket because they would have bruised and rotted before they even got to the distribution center, in some other part of the country.
I accept the "reality" of that... even though it makes me sad.
Even the locally grown berries we sometimes can get at our Farmer's Market lack a little "something." I suppose the only way to reproduce that flavor from my childhood is to grow our own-- as we did, back then. Those magical and wonderful berries were never "store bought," back then... just as they are not available in stores today.
How about YOU? Do you have a favorite childhood "food memory?" A slightly "odd" eating habit or food that made you happy? If so, what was it? Have you ever been able to find that flavor again, as an adult? Leave a comment-- share your experience-- start the conversation!
(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
You looked do cute :). I agree Strawberries today are tasteless
Awww... thanks! Sadly, most fruit and veg is tasteless... unless you grow it yourself or get it from a farmer's market.
Very true
Mayo on toast is right from my childhood.
As far as growing your own. My friend Gary and I were 6, we used to grow gourds. Then in the fall, we would varnish them, put them in a wagon, and take them around the neighborhood selling them for a nickel or so....good times!
There's a cool memory! When we had nothing else, it was toast with butter and brown sugar.
I started my own "tree farm" when I was about 7-8... basically transplanting all the tiny "volunteer" trees my dad would otherwise have weeded out. By my 10th birthday I sold them all (about 500) to a guy who had landscaping company, for enough money to buy a bike. Good times, yeah!
Thanks for sharing!
Maybe that's why we both seem to have the stick with it-ness you speak of to stick it out on here. We were both young hustlers LOL