California Strawberries Lacking In Flavor

A couple of years ago, I was looking for some “fraises des bois” wild strawberries. I tracked down a source and asked him if he would send me some.

“No,” he said. “They are just too fragile.”

After some begging, I got him to agree. The next day, a big box with “Fragile” and “Delicate” scrawled all over it arrived. Inside was a mass of newspapers surrounding a smaller box. Inside the smaller box was a mass of tissue surrounding an even smaller box. Inside the smaller box was a pint of fraises des bois. Crushed.

And therein lies the paradox of the strawberry. The best berries are too delicate to ship. And a berry that’s smashed and bleeding when you get it isn’t of much use, no matter how good it tasted originally.

This paradox is being played out on a grand scale across California this year as growers bolt toward the new Camarosa variety of strawberry. It’s big and it’s firm and you could probably send it regular mail to New York and still have it look good.

It’s also great to harvest. It comes in season early, when prices are high. Because of its firmness, it doesn’t bruise in picking. And it bears fruit at a regular pace, unlike the previous favorite Chandler.

But the Camarosa just doesn’t have much flavor. Oh, sure, a top-notch Camarosa can be a good berry, maybe even a very good berry. On some days, it may even be better than an average Chandler.

But it will never compare to a good Chandler, a berry that at its peak has a deep, winey complexity that can make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

At its worst, the Camarosa is a crunchy, tasteless thing. I tried to crush some with a fork and bent the fork.

Still, I can almost guarantee you that all of that won’t make a bit of difference to growers. Almost every berry you buy in a grocery store today is a Camarosa and that’s not likely to change. It’s just too farmer-friendly.

If you buy Camarosas, choose those berries that are darkest. A really ripe Camarosa is almost maroon; in fact, one of the biggest problems with the berry is that it’s usually picked red, which is underripe. Chandlers, on the other hand, have an almost orange-ish cast to them when really ripe.