Strawberries!

I can hardly believe it, but it is strawberry season in Japan!  My understanding is that strawberries are mainly grown in green houses here, but the timing is still so strange to me.  I'm always so excited for strawberry season.  I grew several varieties in my garden in the US so that I could enjoy them as long as possible.  Of course, most of them never made it into our house!  Between my son, my husband, myself, and birds, they really didn't have a chance.  It didn't matter how many plants I had.  Sometimes we would put them in a bowl to pretend like they were going to make it, but then we'd sit on the steps and eat all the sun kissed fruit.

The are prominently displayed in grocery stores all over.  The large berries (Japanese opinion regarding strawberries most commonly is "bigger is better") are laid out in a single layer on a plastic tray with a thin layer of Styrofoam under the delicate berries, and covered with another layer of plastic.  They definitely love their wrapping.  Frankly, I've never seen a display of damaged fruit here, and the wrapping gets all the credit. 

Once you get over the wrapping situation, you might notice that there is always tubes of sweetened condensed milk next to the strawberries.  This is because one of the most popular ways to eat fresh strawberries isn't with whipped cream.  It is with a little squeeze of sweetened condensed milk on it.  When we had fresh strawberries with my husband's family one year, they were aghast that I didn't want any of the added sugar.  I often baffled them, but this was really hard for them to understand.

While I am enjoying eating (way too many) strawberries in January, they still can't compare to homegrown, sun kissed berries.  Maybe I'll have to splurge for one of the berries that my husband saw at the store today - ¥1,000 ($9.20) for one strawberry.  Of course, more expensive doesn't always mean better, so I'll probably just resolve to grow a pot of them on my porch instead.