I LOVE strawberries. Strawberry season is my favorite time of year. In our house growing up, strawberry shortcake was dinner and the end of the school year, the start of summer, going to camp and summer swim team. Maybe I was a little too addicted to that Strawberry Shortcake scent in my formative years, which would explain a lot – you know those 1980s toys… I had the Strawberry Shortcake rag doll complete with the cat, whose name I’ve since forgotten. In the current edition she looks like a quasi-Barbie teenager and has a dog name Pupcake (really??). Thanks to Wikipedia, the cat’s name was Custard (at least that’s better than Pupcake and makes more sense).
Back to the fruit, which is not a fruit at least not botanically speaking. Heck, it’s not even a berry botanically speaking. It’s a pseudocarp, which is definitely not a fish. The strawberry is essentially a whole lot of little fruits stuck together to make one, well, psuedocarp (The Strawberry: A Multiple Fruit). Strawberries are high in folic acid, vitamin C, and fiber and are actually grown in all 50 states if you can believe it.
I only managed to find one recipe using strawberries in the whole assortment of recipes, which makes me a little sad. I’m guessing though that strawberries were eaten or made into jam and occasionally a nice dessert.
I used an 8x8 baking dish for my Strawberry Surprise. I imagine if you make it in a smaller dish you won’t have the “problem” I did. The recipe (for me and my dish) makes one layer each of the strawberries and dough. I could not make it into multiple layers if I tried. So I decided I’d make the recipe again. This leads to my next point about strawberries – buy fresh, from a farm or farmer, they are infinitely better.
Local berries are picked at the peak of ripeness. Commercial berry farms go through the fields with machines and harvest, package, and ship to your local store however many miles away. Now, depending on where you are this might be your only option. I get that. However, it’s worth the mild inconvenience to once and a while go to a farm (take the kids, they’re short and have easier access to the ground) and pick your own or go to a farmer’s market or roadside stand to get strawberries. Berry picking and choosing is well explained on the StrawberryPlants.org (http://strawberryplants.org/2010/06/strawberry-picking/) site. PickYourOwn.org (http://www.pickyourown.org/index.htm) is a handy way to find a strawberry picking farm near you. So, my first very nice 2 pints of strawberries were well picked by a farmer down the road in Knightdale, NC and the second batch wasn’t quite as nice as it came from somewhere in FL or CA before it reached my grocery store and didn’t generate nearly as much in mashed quantity as the first.
Nonetheless, Grandma’s Strawberry Surprise is very tasty, much like a strawberry cobbler. Served with ice cream or whipped cream it’s absolutely fabulous.
