It’s strawberry season! Learn a recipe with fruit

It may seem strange to celebrate the strawberry season in October, after all, nowadays it is possible to buy the fruit almost all year round, right? It has been a long time since strawberries left behind their seasonal characteristics, with harvests only once a year. The introduction of new varieties of the fruit combined with the evolution of cultivation technology means that strawberries are now consumed every month of the year, in almost all Brazilian states.

The harvest time, however, depends on the region’s climate and the method of cultivation, varying from April to October in warmer regions and continuing until December in colder regions, such as in southern Brazil. But the months of September and October are still the peak of the harvest across the country, when strawberries are irresistible: bigger, tastier, sweet and fragrant.

“We chefs struggle with this a lot. We no longer respect fruits and their crops. You no longer have to know that strawberries are good from July onwards and that September and October are when they are at their peak and sweetest. It’s very difficult for us to comply with this, because today we have strawberries all year round and the bakery loves strawberries. They added strawberries, it’s commercial and sells easily!”, says Anna Cury, pastry chef at Bee.O Café.

“Today we have strawberries all year round and the bakery loves strawberries. They added strawberries, they sell easily”

Anna Cury, pastry chef at Bee.O Café.

The chef is absolutely right: strawberries are one of the most consumed fruits in the world, with production increasing every year, following high demand. In countries like the United States, the world’s second largest producer after China, strawberries are already consumed more than fruits such as bananas, apples, watermelons and grapes. Brazil occupies the 17th position among the largest strawberry producers in the ranking of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with an annual production of 200 thousand tons, according to data gathered by Embrapa, with state organizations.

In Paraná it is no different. In 2022, the state was the second largest producer of strawberries in Brazil, behind only Minas Gerais, according to data from the Department of Rural Economy (Deral), the Secretariat of Agriculture and Supply of Paraná. Strawberries are the second most profitable fruit crop in our state – the first is oranges – and more than 34 thousand tons of fruit are produced per year. São José dos Pinhais, in the Metropolitan Region of Curitiba, is the largest producer of strawberries in Paraná, with 4.7 thousand tons of fruit, according to a survey by the State Department of Agriculture and Supply (Semag).

From sweet to savory

To highlight the fruit at its peak of flavor, chef Anna Cury promoted the “Strawberry Festival” at Bee.O Café, during the last week of September. These days, strawberry-based creations were the protagonists of the store’s windows and social media, which focuses on a modern version of traditional confectionery, with everything 100% produced in-house, in a very artisanal and limited way. Delicious treats such as Strawberry Bonbon, Vanilla Verrine with strawberry and meringues, Sonho de nata with meringue and strawberry jelly, Supreme with strawberry and crème brûléeNutella Croissant with strawberry and Strawberry Cookie filled with fruit jelly – the chef’s favorite.

“Those who bought strawberries that week noticed that they were sweeter, so the festival was precisely to encourage the consumption of the fruit in its best season. Today we are eating a strawberry with a real strawberry flavor, sweet and acidic in the right amount, not the one you eat and tastes like styrofoam”, explains Anna. The five kilos of strawberries used weekly at Bee.O are supplied by a small producer who works with agroecological cultivation, without pesticides harmful to health.

And anyone who thinks that strawberries only go well in sweet preparations is wrong. One of the items created by the chef for the festival surprisingly brings the flavor of fruit to the salty palate: a toast with burrata, Parma ham, salty granola and dehydrated strawberries in salt and balsamic (check out the recipe below). “It’s an extremely easy fruit to work with. You can start from a savory one, go to a neutral one, for someone who doesn’t like very sweet sweets, to a sweet treat for children, chocolate and strawberry, which is the most classic combination. It is not a fruit that will steal the flavor of other ingredients, but it will complement it with citrus and sweetness”, highlights Anna.

The ancestor, white strawberry

Would you eat a completely white strawberry, with red seeds, pineapple aroma and flavor? No, this is not a new invention from the candy industry, but rather a real fruit produced in Brazil.

Known as strawberry-pineapple or pineberry, due to its similarity with the tropical citrus fruit, the white strawberry is a modified fruit, derived from the crossing between different wild species. The completely white color, both inside and outside, is due to the low concentration of anthocyanin, the substance responsible for the red color of conventional strawberries.

Sweeter, softer and with a lower degree of acidity, white strawberries (Fragaria chiloensis) originate from Chile, in South America, and actually existed in nature until the 18th century. Many consider it the “father” of red strawberries, as it was from a cross between it and the North American species Virginia Fragaria that emerged Ananassa Fragariathe most produced and consumed strawberry worldwide.

According to research by Chilean anthropologist Héctor Manosalva, the Mapuche indigenous people would have been the first to cultivate white strawberries, which were eaten raw, dehydrated like raisins, used in chicha fermented and in traditional medicines to combat illnesses such as diarrhea, dysentery and indigestion. However, over the decades, the red variety of fruit, produced on a large scale, came to dominate Chilean fields, destroying a crop that had been cultivated for centuries.

White strawberries returned to the scene in 2009, through genetic crossings, in countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan and the United States, where they are produced and sold on a small scale. Despite being more resistant to diseases and pests, the white strawberry is smaller in size than the common strawberry and its plants have a limited production, which contributes to its higher price on the market. In Japan, for example, a tray with eight units costs around 1,500 yen, the equivalent of around R$50.

In Brazil, white strawberries are being cultivated in Atibaia, in the interior of São Paulo, by small producers who previously lived in Japan. As it is genetically modified, the fruit is awaiting registration approval with the Ministry of Agriculture to be sold in the country.