Any way to make store strawberries taste better?

[sixdogs]

Any ideas on how to improve the taste of store strawberries? Let them get overripe? Keep out of refrigerator? Any ideas? Am I missing something or do I just have to wait for local berries?

I came home from Costco the other day with three cartons of good looking strawberries. One was full of really big berries and the other two were smaller berries that I thought would taste better because they were smaller and the flavor would be more concentrated. None were very good and I got more strawberry taste out of some jam for breakfast.

How come store strawberries are so bad?

 

[smstonypoint]

How come store strawberries are so bad?

My guess is that the "store bought" strawberry varieties have been bred to withstand shipping rather than to enhance taste/flavor.

Steve

 

[Obejuan64]

Strawberry Moonshine!!!

 

[Dr_Zinj]

Dip them in maple syrup, honey, or chocolate.
Sprinkle sweetener on them.
Could do what my father always used to recommend; throw them away and eat the box.

 

[joshuabardwell]

My guess is that the "store bought" strawberry varieties have been bred to withstand shipping rather than to enhance taste/flavor.

Bingo. The only real answer, IMO, is to grow your own. Unlike apples (for example), strawberries don't really ripen once you pick them. They pretty much seem to just spoil. Fortunately, strawberries are a really robust plant, and are dead simple to grow, so if you're interested, give it a go.

 

[TnAndy]

If they are like tomatoes, ( and I don't know IF this is so ) they pick them green, put in a closed truck, and throw a couple canisters of gas in with it to turn them red on the way to market.

Lot of tomatoes are grown here for fall crop. Picked dead green, put in boxes that say "Vine Ripened" (ahahahaaaa) and sent on up the east coast to produce markets, where they come out of the truck fire engine red, and about as tasty as the box they were packed in.

 

[TnAndy]

If they are like tomatoes, ( and I don't know IF this is so ) they pick them green, put in a closed truck, and throw a couple canisters of gas in with it to turn them red on the way to market.

Lot of tomatoes are grown here for fall crop. Picked dead green, put in boxes that say "Vine Ripened" (ahahahaaaa) and sent on up the east coast to produce markets, where they come out of the truck fire engine red, and about as tasty as the box they were packed in.

 

[MossRoad]

Slice up the berries in a container, coat them with sugar, let them sit in the covered container an hour or so in the fridge, stir them to re-coat them, and let them sit overnight.

Put them on vanilla ice cream tomorrow night. :thumbsup:

 

[newbury]

Dip them in maple syrup, honey, or chocolate.
Sprinkle sweetener on them.

Then put them in the freezer till the coating hardens.
Take them out.
Bust off the coating.
Throw the strawberries away and eat the coating.

 

[sixdogs]

Wow...not a lot of love for store bought strawberries.

MossRoad--wife cut them up and put sugar on top and she is making an angel food cake right now. Slice of that cake with strawberries on top is probably the best and highest use of big box berries.