Kitchen Garden Forum

There is a variety of strawberries that is completely white when ripe. It's hard to see exactly when that is, but I figured the seeds on the fruit should all be colored red for the fruit to be completely ripe and ready to eat. Green seeds means unripe strawberries.

How fascinating!

I also learned that before the roman empire there were two kinds of strawberries, red in North America and white in Asia (or the other way around, so nevermind). The red ones looked tastier so man has cultivated the red ones all around the world and sort of forgot about the white ones.

Honestly, I always thought white strawberries were made my man, but they are not and it's an original!

On the picture: (almost) ripe white strawberries from my garden at home. Also called "pineberry".

I grow some Alpine Strawberries that are white, the Grandsons love them.

Elmigo, we expect a full connoisseur's taste comparison!

And did you know that strawberries are the only fruit which bear their seeds on the outside? (At least that's what somebody told me)

I did not know they were the only fruit that do this!
Now I'm trying to think of any other fruit that does but I can't come up with one example

Somehow can,t come to terms with white strawberries although I'd be intrigued to see if their flavour is any different. No doubt a blind person wouldn,t notice the difference although the rest of us Probably tend to eat with our eyes!

It's a bit like ripe yellow and especially green tomatoes, isn't it? I recently bought some mixed small tomatoes from M&S (grown on the Isle of Wight, it says) which included yellow, green and very dark red tomatoes. The yellow and dark red ones I can accept, but, somehow, you don't expect green tomatoes to taste ripe, but they do. As you say, Primrose, we probably tend to eat with our eyes!

I decided not to grow yellow toms for just this reason. Checking by feel for ripeness is slow compared to picking by eye.

They obviously seem to be growing well in their pallet construction Elmigo.

Oh the strawberries love the pallet construction. There are so many, even on one plant!

No doubt we eat with our eyes quite often. I think that's why restaurants turn their dishes into an art form. I've once photographed at a restaurant and their cook spent more time styling the dish than actually cooking it!

Pity we can't satisfy our hunger with our eyes. Some of the stylish snacks that cookery programmes claim are meals are ridiculous, unbalanced and insubstantial.

Oh well said Geoff....I remember many, many years ago, I got invited out to an expensive restaurant...I stopped at the fish and chip shop on the way home...

A good chip shop is often worth visiting. The best one here is/was at the station, I just wanted it to be open as I got back at 23:00 and not close at 22:00.
I was a complete slob and ate them on the walk home.

This reminds me of an anecdote of my father's. One day in the GP surgery, one of his partners arrived and said, "I called in on David (a third partner) last night and he was eating chips, (pause) out of a newspaper!" After a short pause he added "At least we have ours off cold plates."

I grew a whole big planter of White Soul wood strawberries last year- really lovely. I brought some to work for an "eat and tell" and they went down a storm.. Most were skeptical, but once they tried them they said they were not quite a strawberry flavour but really tasty. I just planted some more under a pear tree - the birds like red fruit, so don't bother them - bonus. We just nibble them when we weed

Oh for me the white ones definitely taste different and a lot more sweet even... How is this variety not grown as much commercially? Honestly they often look yellowish-white and don't look as tasty as the red ones, but the so called pineberry is very, very sweet!