The strawberries: small fruits, great and curious history
Small red spots are enhancing the colors of our fields: strawberries.
In reality the strawberry is a false fruit since is nothing more than a receptacle of a thickened inflorescence.
It is particularly rich in vitamins (B1, B2, B6, B9, C, E) and water (about 90%).
Its ancestor is the wild strawberry, incredible variety with a unique taste that still grows today in our woods in Piemonte.
We talk about her to understand the origin of a fruit that we consume every day and has a curious history.
Paris, 1714. A French officer, Lieutenant of a french ship (and a great botany lover) brings as a gift to the King Sole, a plant of strawberries native from Chile, clone characterized by only female flowers.
For ornamental purposes the wild variety was present in the King’s garden.
Thanks to the cross pollinating with the Chilean strawberries a new variety with bigger fruits was born.
Due to this in 1766 with Antoine Nicolas Duchesne, gardener of Louis XVI, the strawberry was the subject of more detailed studies with a varietal classification and different tests.
In the end hybridizations took place during the nineteenth century and lead us to the varieties currently grown.
The meeting with our tradition
As we have seen small fruits but with a great history, with an unmistakable color, flavor and aroma.
In this great history, we continue with another one, the Piedmontese tradition. Our grandfathers used their fruits harvested in early summer to transform them having a product in winter time.
This was due to the fact that in winter the amount of calories needed was higher.
Today, as then, we are great supporters of this ancient piedmontese tradition by working our strawberries from fresh and within few hours from the harvest.
The process is exclusively made in a crafted way to create products with unique flavors, sometimes forgotten from the past.
In the end our strawberry jam has only two ingredients: strawberries and cane sugar. 165 grams of fresh fruit every 100 for a unique product that will make us child again.