With the summer solstice only a few days away, one of the most sensuous gifts we receive from the extended sunshine in the Pioneer Valley at this time of year is the strawberry.
Strawberries thrive on the long, bright days of June in New England.
I love cooking with strawberries. I enjoy picking them almost as much. I always wear old, ratty clothes when I pick.
Somehow, between kneeling next to the ripe fruit and eating as much as I can, I end up with red stains everywhere. I don’t mind. Nothing beats a strawberry fresh from the field.
I recently spoke about these succulent fruits with David Wissemann, of Warner Farm in Sunderland. Wissemann represents the 10th generation of his family working on the farm.
“It’s been around since about the founding of Sunderland, over 300 years now,” he told me.
His mother was a Warner, and he runs the farm with his father, Mike Wissemann, of Mike’s Maze fame.
The younger Wissemann loved helping out on the farm in his youth but didn’t necessarily expect to work on it as an adult.
“Growing up, I didn’t really think of the farm as a viable kind of career path,” he mused. “The farm went through some tough times.”
He cited a drop in wholesale prices and a large barn fire as contributors to those tough times.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology at the College of Wooster in Ohio. A couple of factors led him to consider returning home.
One was that he “graduated in the midst of the great recession.”
The other was that the farm was beginning to bounce back with crop diversification and what Wissemann termed “agritainment.”
It started offering CSAs in about 2008. More and more people were looking for quality local food. And the pick-your-own strawberry business was thriving.
David Wissemann confessed that his favorite fruit — indeed, his favorite product of his family’s farm — is the one in full season right now.
“I am horribly biased. I grew up eating the strawberries here. … It’s the combination of the soil we have and the weather, the terroir if you will,” he said, using the French word that describes the ways in which soil and other growing conditions define the unique flavor of a food or wine.
Wissemann explained that strawberries come in two basic types. One is known as day neutral, or ever bearing. These varieties, popular in California, produce fruit throughout the growing season. The day-neutral berries at Warner Farm will probably be available from July until the first frost.
The strawberries we associate with our area, strawberries with a capital “S,” are known as June berries.
“They only produce flowers in May, and then they eventually fruit in June,” Wissemann said. “They have the most spectacular flavors.”
The key to a good strawberry season, he continued, is cooler temperatures such as those we had toward the end of May.
Like me, Wissemann has always savored the experience of picking strawberries.
“Growing up, my cousins and I would eat them straight out of the field. We’d be disgusting with them,” he said.
He also enjoys eating them in prepared recipes. He described his fond memories of his grandmother’s strawberry shortcake, as well as of “lots of strawberry daiquiris.”
The recipe David Wissemann chose to share with readers of the Greenfield Recorder is one for a cocktail.
“It’s a mixed-drink thing that we actually served at my wedding,” he said. “I think we called it the Strawberry Blossom.”
Warner Farm strawberries are now available at a variety of local farmers markets, as well as at the Millstone Market in Sunderland, which is owned and operated by the farm. Warner has pick-your-own locations on South Main Street in Sunderland and on Plain Road in Greenfield.
For up-to-date weather and crop information, visit Warner Farm’s Facebook page at facebook.com/warnerfarm1718.
Three strawberries, hulled
1½ ounces gin
½ ounce elderflower liqueur
1 splash lime juice
4 ounces club soda
Muddle the berries at the bottom of a tall glass. Gently stir in the gin, the liqueur, and the lime juice. Top off with club soda and a few ice cubes. Serves one.
Tinky Weisblat is the award-winning author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook,” “Pulling Taffy” and “Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.