The Incredible History of Strawberries

Doubtless, God could have made a better berry, but doubtless, God never did. That was what the 17th century writer William Butler had to say about the strawberry. As far back as the late middle ages, strawberries have been held in high regard, to the point of being associated with the divine. What's more, multiple different cultures each came to this same conclusion independently. With over 9 million tons of strawberries being grown worldwide today, this admiration clearly persists. But, what is the strawberry? Where did it come from, and how did it attain this status? Well, to be honest, this fruit has quite a tale attached to it that goes back thousands of years. Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to Fire of Learning's Food History series, a series in which we discuss the surprising and amazing stories of foods we eat every day. Thank you for joining us in this episode as we tell the story of the strawberry. Before we begin, I'd like to thank Joe Cantu Jr., Colin Ricardo, Gabriel B. N. Silva, Naderbek Shamsayev, Juan Big Degenerate, and Haze for being our most recent supporters on Patreon. They join these supporters listed here who help to make these videos possible. Where do we begin with the strawberry? From an origin point likely somewhere in North America, strawberries had spread throughout the Americas and into Eurasia through natural means and developed into over 20 different species many thousands of years before they were cultivated by humans. As a result, many cultures throughout the Americas and Eurasia grew and consumed strawberries long before Columbus, albeit different kinds. The strawberry was known to the ancient Romans and possibly the ancient Greeks. Romans such as Apuleius, Ovid, Pliny, and Virgil spoke of the strawberry in their writing. The Romans called it Fraga and spoke positively of it. However, though strawberries grew throughout many parts of the Roman Empire and were used by the Romans for medicinal purposes as well as for food, they were not of great agricultural importance. Indeed, ancient references to strawberries are few, and the references that do exist portray strawberries as predominantly wild fruits. These were not the strawberries with which most of us are familiar today. Those would take time. There are three different species of strawberries eaten in pre-modern Europe, those listed here, the woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca, and the musk strawberry, Fragaria muscata, in particular. As you can see, they're smaller and rounder than the strawberries we tend to eat today. After the Roman authors, strawberries were rarely discussed in writing for centuries. Likely, throughout the early and high Middle Ages, strawberries remained predominantly wild fruits. Still, they clearly retained some importance throughout this time. The very English word strawberry, in fact, seems to come from the Anglo-Saxons. The European cultivation of strawberries seems to have begun in 13th or 14th century France. Written records begin to appear in the age of the Hundred Years' War. In 1368, the French king Charles the Wise ordered his gardener to plant no less than 1,200 strawberry plants in the gardens of the Louvre Palace. They also became popular in the nearby Duchy of Burgundy, a favorite of Duke John the Fearless's wife, Margaret. The plants were grown ornamentally for their flowers, as well as for their fruits. Strawberry cultivation became popular throughout Europe in places like Germany, Italy, and England not long after. It wasn't long before strawberries began to appear in contemporary art from these lands as well. In the Romance languages, the word for strawberry came from the Latin word fraga, like the French word fraise. Most Germanic languages came to call them something like aetbara, earthberry. So why do we call them strawberries in English? This again seems to go back to the Anglo-Saxons, but the reason isn't clear. There are several theories, but according to George M. Darrow in his book The Strawberry, History, Breeding, and Physiology, the most likely explanation has to do with how the berries strew away from the plant to find space to grow. They were therefore originally strewn berries. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, other cultures had been contributing to the story of the strawberry all along. Of crucial importance to this story, these cultures were about to meet. Native Americans in both North and South America consumed, and some even cultivated, strawberries prior to European arrival. In North America, groups like the Iroquois and Cherokee ate them wild, and held them in high regard. The Cherokee believed that strawberries were created to heal a divide between the first man and first woman. Some native groups would mix strawberries with cornmeal to make a strawberry cornbread. In modern Chile, the Mapuche and Huiliche cultivated strawberries. Still, these were not the typical kind of strawberry that we eat today either. However, European exploration of the Americas was bringing us closer. When Europeans discovered the strawberries of the Americas, they were quite impressed, and the fruits remained popular in the colonies that were established there. However, throughout the 16th century, the Europeans who stayed in Europe continued eating the varieties they had at home. King Henry VIII of England, for example, was a known fan of strawberries, as was much of the nobility at the time. An unknown cook in the service of Thomas Wolsey, the king's right-hand man, is often credited with being the first to pair strawberries with cream. Strawberries are also mentioned several times in the works of Shakespeare. In 1593, the popularity of strawberries in England was described by Thomas Hill. Quote, They be much eaten at all men's tables in the summertime with wine and sugar, and they will grow in gardens until the bigness of the mulberry. The strawberry requires small labor, but, by diligence of the gardener, becometh so great that the same yieldeth fair and big berries as the berries of the bramble and the hedge. End quote. All right, everyone, it is time to absolutely shatter your reality. We've been through it plenty of times before on this series. Peanuts are not nuts. Sweet potatoes aren't potatoes. And indeed, my good audience, strawberries are not berries. And technically, they aren't fruit in the way you would expect either, at least not botanically. What is it then? What we consider to be the fruit of the strawberry plant is called the enlarged receptacle of the flower. This is what holds on to the actual fruit. An actual strawberry fruit is what we would call a seed. It's actually an achene, and the seeds are inside them. Strawberries aren't berries because the flower has more than one ovary. That makes them aggregate fruits. However, culinarily, which is what matters to most people, of course, it does make sense to pair them with the actual berries, like raspberries and blackberries. No, wait, those technically aren't berries either. Eggplants, though, those are real berries. Yeah, let's, um, let's move on. By the 17th century, Europeans were importing the strawberries from the Americas back to Europe. One North American species in particular, Pregaria virginiana, the Virginia strawberry, was a hardy species that seems to have reached Europe by 1623, probably earlier, though it would take time for Europeans to become sufficiently interested in it. In 1714, a French spy, Lieutenant Colonel Amédée-François Frézier, traveled to Spanish Chile and brought back a species of strawberry that was growing there natively, Pregaria chiloensis, the Chilean strawberry or beech strawberry. Coincidentally, his surname, Frézier, which became Frasier in English, was derived from the French word for strawberry. This Chilean strawberry was not very hardy, but was rather large, and would doubtlessly be of interest to farmers back home. But there was a problem. At first, the Chilean plants Frézier brought back were rarely producing fruit, regardless of where they were planted. When they did produce fruit, the fruit was not the large fruit he had observed in Chile. By the way, the plants could still reproduce by what are called runners, which is how people still prefer to plant strawberries today. Eventually though, Breton and Norman farmers realized the Chilean plant bore fruits more abundantly when planted around other species. The 19-year-old French botanist Antoine-Nicolas Duquesne was the first to identify exactly why this was the case in 1766. The Chilean strawberry is a dioecious or unisexual plant, meaning each plant produces flowers that have only one biological sex. This is in contrast to certain other flowering plants. Even certain other strawberries, which are monoecious or monoecious, meaning an individual plant produces male and female flowers. Frézier did not know it, but he had brought back only female plants from Chile. Duquesne realized Chilean strawberries produced the large fruits for which they are famous when they came into contact with male musk strawberries or Virginia strawberries. This was a major step in the story of the strawberry. The accidental cross between the Chilean strawberry and the Virginia strawberry created a hybrid called the garden strawberry, Frigaria ananasa. The garden strawberry is a strawberry with which we are the most familiar today. For his efforts, Duquesne won the admiration and thanks of many, including the French king Louis XV. Once created, the garden strawberry would continue to be bred by Europeans, namely the French, English, and Dutch. It seems the garden strawberry was brought to the United States in the 1770s. These four countries in particular would produce many new varieties in the following centuries which would spread around the world. Strawberry production took off in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the development of new varieties combined with industrial farming. They became a more widely available favorite, with the sweet flavor becoming commonly used in everything from ice cream to lipstick. The first mention of the ancestor of strawberry shortcake, by the way, seems to come from Columbus, Ohio, and dates to June 1st, 1845. Today the strawberry is more popular than ever, and the varieties available are greater than ever as well. The top three producers of garden strawberries today are China, the United States, and Mexico, with these three producing well over half of all strawberries grown worldwide. So as a final important note about the strawberry, I would say that... Um... I do believe that is the ice cream truck. I should, uh, probably finish this. I still have to do the closing credits, too. Um... No, no, no, I gotta get one. Peanut, where did you put my wallet? I gotta get a SpongeBob popsicle, even though they always help me fast. Oh, of course, you don't have to. Dude, you're gonna get it. Wait!