link to full article here: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2011/06/actual_wild_str.php
Yes, wild strawberries are almost unbelievably small.
Maybe you’ve stumbled upon a patch while hiking in a remote part of the Catskills in late springtime, lured across a meadow by a tiny flash of brilliant red, but for most of us, wild strawberries remain an idea rather than a reality, or merely the title of a movie by Ingmar Bergman.
While the quantity seems small for $6, each box represents about $600 worth of flavor.
Sure, diminutive Tristar strawberries, which are bred from wild strawberries, are readily available, but I’d never seen foraged wild strawberries in the farmers’ market before I stumbled on a display of a few boxes at the stall of Berried Treasures, of Cooks Falls, New York, in the western Catskill Mountains. I snapped up a box immediately, and the clerk threw in another box since nobody seemed to be buying them.
The berries are no bigger than a baby’s thumbnail, and have to be sold still on their stalks, since trying to pull them off would squish them for certain. The flavor is over-the-top memorable, with some berries intensely sweet, while others are just intense. And you can’t do anything but eat them. Immediately.
Berried Treasures will also be selling Tristar strawberries later in the season.
