Strawberries and Cream, Overrated?

Ripe, juicy strawberries are luscious beyond description. Why sully them by adding cream? Unfortunately, however, the strawberries that show up at grocery stores are often bland and uninspiring.

Overrated thingy – the Boston Red Sox. Ok. they’re the reigning world champions, but they’re annoying the heck out of me this year.

Wow. If you think the strawberries are not sweet enough, cut them once lengthwise, then sprinkle a couple of teaspoons of white sugar over them. Leave them alone for a half hour or so, then stir them up a bit. They’ll become juicy and sweet.

I like them either way, personally. But I think this will turn you around on this subject.

Oh, also – as @SadieMartinPaul said, avoid the flavourless jumbos found in the supermarket chains. The smaller, the better – and if you can get them fresh in season, go for it.

Strawberries from a supermarket are sour and hard. Strawberries from a field “U Pick” are incredible – naturally sweet, no additional sugar needed.

Fields of sweet-tart strawberries are alive in the Midwestern U.S. at this very moment.

Fresh cooked artichokes are highly overrated.
As is do-it-yourself snow-crab legs and small, bland, peel-and-eat shrimp.
“Lettuce wedges”. What, I have to mow my own grass at a restaurant?!

“It suddenly dawned on me the other day that after years of hunting down sweet strawberries, that they don’t really exist. That in fact, strawberries are horrible sour things”

Try growing your own strawberries. They are incredibly sweet and juicy. Most strawberries in grocery stores are picked before ripe and ripened on the truck. That’s why they tend to taste like crap.

Have never tried strawberries with cream, but strawberries are awesome! I can eat them all day.

Cream is definitely overrated, I’ve never cared for it myself. You can still find sweet strawberries, even the huge ones, I think size is irrelevant when it comes to strawberries but colour definitely isn’t, the richer red the better, and don’t store strawberries in the fridge.

Fresh strawberries picked from the garden do not need cream.

@LornaLove I haven’t grown my own strawberries so perhaps my experience relates only to the shop bought ones (which wouldn’t surprise me) but I agree that the ones you buy don’t live up to the hype. If you have to pour on sugar and cream, they can’t be so sweet can they? I don’t have to put cream and sugar on a banana or peach or mango. I don’t mind strawberries but they look better than they taste.

Nope.

I’ll stick with strawberries and cream, thank you. My favorite way to eat is is to use frozen berries (the kind with sweet syrup) mixed with heavy cream. Ahhhhhhhh.

As for something I think is over-rated—and man, am I gonna hear pushback on this!!!—it’s beer. Ten million kinds and they all taste bitter to me.

When I was a kid we would have this big Easter feast of a brunch which included strawberries. There was a bowl of chocolate sauce into which you could dip your strawberries and there was a bowl of confectioner’s (powdered) sugar for dipping.

The granulated sugar was used when storing the strawberries in the fridge or when sealing them in the Ball glass jars.

Strawberries and cream is delicious. Strawberries and whipped cream over a fresh warm shortcake biscuit is heaven.

I often dip my strawberries in a little sugar if they are not sweet. Dipped is better than sprinkling sugar over the berries before serving in my opinion. The sweet is directly on your tongue. Less fat than that awful icky cream. I don’t like cream nor whipped cream.

I don’t know if I can name overrated food, because doesn’t it just depend on an individual’s taste. There are bunches of foods I don’t like that almost everyone else does. I don’t like cheesecake, fresh tomatoes, blueberries, just to name a few.

@JLeslie I prefer the sprinkling, because it macerates the strawberries, dissolving the sugar. I don’t want crunchy strawberries. ;)

To each his own.

When I went strawberry picking this season, I was given a choice between small, sweet berries or large, less-sweet berries. I don’t understand why anyone would not pick the small sweet ones, yet there we were… all alone in the sweet berry field.

They were amazing.

I roasted the left-overs in 1T balsamic vinegar and 2T sugar at 350 degrees for almost an hour. I made strawberry frozen custard with some and froze the rest as-is… for sauce or to make jam or whatever. It’s delicious.

Depending upon the season (at least here in California) the strawberries will range from hard and sour, to juicy and sweet. So sweet ones do exist, actually the ones we’ve got right now, in the middle of summer are really good. Even the great big ones are sweet and juicy.

I’ve never had them with just cream. The only thing I’ve ever had with just plain old cream was coffee, although I have tasted it on its own and it’s magnificent. Cream is one of those things that I could easily get addicted to, so I try to keep it just for coffee.

On the other hand, I think coffee, itself, is highly overrated. I drink the cheapest instant coffee at home, because most other fancy coffee tastes super bitter and oily to me. The beans smell wonderful, but coffee does not taste the way it smells. The instant stuff is rather smooth and gets the job done.

@Kardamom Someday you need to try some Blue Bottle Coffee. And my guilty pleasure as a kid was Frosted Flakes with half and half….

A good farmer’s market will have delicious ripe but not overripe sweet strawberries. Delicious with cream and with real whipped cream (not the aerosol stuff).

@Kardamom ‘Good’ coffee should not taste bitter, but then I’m sure taste is subjective. I ADORE good coffee :)

@LornaLove I’ve had what other people have said is great coffee at Starbucks and Peete’s and other independent places and just plain old restaurants. It always tastes oily and bitter to me. The only place that I’ve had good coffee was at Ikea. My relatives are always brewing up fancy coffee at home and I always oblige, but it always tastes terrible and burnt to me, even though everyone else is saying how yummy it is.

@zenvelo Where would I find Blue Bottle Coffee. I think I love almost any kind of dairy product to come down the pike. I adore clotted cream, which I first tasted when I took a trip to England. I had never heard of it until then, was a little scared to try something with the word clotted in it, but then I tasted it and me oh my! I wouldn’t mind having some of that with strawberries and short cake.

@Kardamom Oh my, clotted cream is the deal. I had never heard of it either. It’s to die for. I used to buy some coffee from Brazil (who knows where or by whom when in SA, lovely). I think coffee is as I said subjective. Thanks though, for mentioning what you felt was overrated.

@Cupcake Do you find the sweeter ones to be more mushy? It took me years to like any berry, and part of it is the texture. I actually like them harder, but not when they are so hard they seem not ripe.

Strawberries are awesome, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never added cream to my strawberries, so I can’t say much about that.

As for my overrated food item: hummus. Seriously, the stuff is gross. I don’t know how people eat it. Another is plain Greek yogurt – like eating sour cream right out of the carton.

@JLeslie No, as long as they were ripe (i.e. no white spots), they were sweet. Overripe and mushy strawberries (the very dark ones) were something else… sour maybe? I’m not sure.

@livelaughlove21 Hummus is a culinary gift from the gods. I remember the first time I tried it, going back 20 plus years, now, and I thought it was one of the best things I’d ever eaten, even though the name of it sounds weird. I’ve also been known to eat sour cream right out of the tub. Greek yogurt is one of my staples. On the 4th of July, I put it on my baked potato with a sprinkling of smoked paprika.

@Kardamom I put Greek yogurt on baked potatoes too – because it tastes like sour cream. I don’t know how people eat it alone like regular yogurt. As for the hummus, you can keep it. We clearly have very different tastes.

@livelaughlove21: Try eating the store brand Greek yogurt, vanilla flavor. You’ll find it has a slight sweet flavor and not sour at all. I add chopped walnuts and sometimes fresh berries like blueberries or cut up strawberries. Try it. Try it on its own and see if you like it.

I agree, Fage or whatever other brand is disgusting. Very sour and I would find it hard to tolerate.

I had a hummus and provolone sandwich for dinner, with tomato and a spot of ranch dressing. It was delicious.

@jca I don’t buy Fage. I but Chiobani for sour cream or mayo substitutions, and a few other recipes. I’ve tried store brand vanilla, along with many other brands. Still gross. I eat Yoplait or Dannon flavored Greek yogurts. Greek yogurt snobs would say it’s not “real” Greek yogurt, but 12g protein and 80–100 calories per serving is real enough to me. The sugar content isn’t as bad as regular flavored yogurt, either, not that I care much about sugar. It’s just a carb, not the devil as some people like to think.

Next week I’ll be trying vanilla Greek yogurt with PB2 and, if necessary, a packet of Splenda. We’ll see how that goes.

Buy Organic.

If you are into organic produce you’ll find that one of the most dramatic differences is strawberries (and other fruit). You’re lucky if you find a basket of non-organic strawberries that isn’t as you describe, horrible, sour, woody…
Organic strawberries are a very different experience, sweet and delightful. Partly because the organic ones have a much shorter transport and shelf life, they have to be fresher. They were picked closer to ripe.

I just scarfed down a tub of Voskos plain Greek yogurt. I haven’t tried Fage, but since I like Greek yogurt in general, I’d probably like it.

This is another way to enjoy strawberries, and no cream anywhere to be seen.

Greek style Strawberry Yogurt
Summery. Great for breakfast.

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh strawberries (stalks removed and cut into quarters)
2 teaspoons castor sugar plus two tablespoons (opt)
2 tablespoons water
½ teaspoon real vanilla essence
500g Greek-style yogurt (unsweetened)

Method:
Place the strawberries in a bowl with 2 teaspoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of water, stir. Cover and leave to macerate in the fridge overnight. Drain away any liquid and divide the strawberries in half. Mash half into a pulp with a fork. Place the yogurt in a large bowl and add the vanilla essence and two tablespoons of sugar (optional). Add the chopped and the pulped strawberries and fold the ingredients together. Serve.

I had an extremely sweet crop of strawberries this year. They were so sweet I only got to taste a couple off the plant. I was going to harvest the next day, but the birds got to them first!

@Yetanotheruser yup, sounds just like birds, very canny creatures are birds.

Gotta love ‘em!