First of the month features. . .

White strawberries, onion rings back on the menu, and more...

Food Pilgrim is going semi-monthly because I have a bit more time on my hands these days, and I thought I’d try out a more newsy edition on the first day of each month. The usual, in-depth look at a single item of edible culture will follow later in the month. We’ll see how this goes. 

Since Valentine’s Day is around the corner, I thought I’d draw your attention to a strange new strawberry that has appeared in Harris Teeter and Whole Foods in these parts. It smells like a strawberry, is incredibly flavorful, and is nearly pure white except where  the seeds—nested in little craters on the fruit’s surface—turn bright red as they are ripening. At full ripeness, the white flesh begins to blush. These elegant hybrid species of the genus Fragaria are called Pineberries or Fraises-Ananas, so named because the scent is a conflation of strawberry and pineapple, according to promoters.

An unripe berry alongside a cluster of blushing ripe berries

One large pack of Pineberries we found were from Quality First Produce, a four-million dollar distributor of local farmer-grown produce with locations in Homestead and Plant City, Florida, and in Hendersonville, NC. I called the company president, Pete Johnson, and he explained that Quality First has been selling these berries for three seasons now, from late December through a few weeks following Valentine’s Day.

I get it. These plump, heart-shaped delicacies scream Valentine’s Day. Another, smaller pack of blushing berries we found came from Astin Farms--also located in Plant City--and were elegantly titled “Berry de Blanc” and packaged in a clam shell with the strawberries neatly nested in rows reminiscent of a box of chocolates.

“The original white berries were discovered in the wilds of South America in the 1700’s,” explains another online product vendor. “Many years ago, that variety was cross bred by farmers with wild red strawberries from Europe,” they say. However, it was the University of Florida (UF) scientist Vance Whitaker who developed pineberries by crossing a Japanese white strawberry and a Florida red strawberry—reportedly a hybrid cross, not a genetically modified fruit. Sales have been brisk, says Pete Johnson.

Now Florida’s fruit scientists have begun to explore more bizarre looking berries.

Photo courtesy of the University of Florida website.

The “Star Spangled” strawberry, which I read about on the UF website, has “notes of kiwi and banana” and comes in a patriotic pattern of red white and blue stripes running through the berry. This berry, once perfected, will be aimed for grocery shelves around July 4^th. That, to me, is berry far-fetched.

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In other food news, the awesome onion rings, dropped from the menu for a time at the Colonial Inn in Hillsborough, are back!  We had rated them the finest to be found, and now they are being brought to table on what looks like a ring toss game. Bravo!

A shout out to the Friends of the Library in Concord, NC, where I spoke in January on my book The Month of Their Ripening: North Carolina Heritage Foods Through the Year. It was great fun.  I have two more of these talks to be given at regional conferences this year—stay tuned.

And finally, one of our favorite meat and three restaurants along I-85 in Spartanburg, SC, caught fire after Christmas. We aim report here on the ongoing restoration of the classic Peach Blossom Diner in our next edition.