Strawberry Time

June on the home farm meant strawberry-time. My mother was in charge of our half acre or so patch of the lush, beautiful red berries. It was one of Ma’s money-making projects; the other major one was the chicken flock and the sale of eggs. Beyond the strawberries for our own use, Ma opened her strawberry patch to town folks on a “pick your own” basis. She sold them by the quart picked—and found herself reminding the town pickers that heaping the quart box too far beyond its rim was a “no-no.” I remember hearing her muttering, “Some of them folks pile two quarts of berries in a one-quart berry box.”

Everyone picked strawberries in quart boxes, like the one pictured above. Pa, my two brothers and I also picked lots of strawberries. Ma traded crates of them—16 quarts to a crate—for groceries at the Wild Rose Mercantile. My dad, brothers and I peddled strawberries to the cottage owners scattered around the lakes east of Wild Rose. They were easy to sell. Who could pass up a beautiful quart of strawberries?

And we ate strawberries, three times a day. On our cornflakes for breakfast, strawberry shortcake for lunch, and if we were lucky, a strawberry pie for supper. Sometimes, we made strawberry sandwiches by mashing a few red ripe strawberries between two thick slices of home-made bread. Ma also made jar after jar of strawberry jam, which we enjoyed all winter. In Old Farm Country Cookbook, that my daughter and I wrote, you’ll find several of my mother’s strawberry recipes.

THE OLD-TIMER SAYS: What would a day in June be without strawberries?

ANNOUNCEMENT: My “Telling Your Story” Writing Class at The Clearing in Door County is set for July 19, 9-4. Call 920-854-4880 if you are interested in attending. The class usually fills, so you may want to reserve a spot sooner than later.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

July 12, 6:00 p.m. Frank B. Koller, Memorial Library, 2 US-51, Manitowish Waters. Old Farm Country Cookbook, with co-author, Susan Apps-Bodilly.

BOOKS FOR SUMMER READING:

For strawberry recipes and many more” OLD FARM COUNTRY COOKBOOK

For garden recipes: GARDEN WISDOM

Purchase from your local bookstore, or buy them from the Friends of the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose—a fundraiser for them. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org

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