 When
you are 13 years old, the last thing you want to do on your summer
vacation is to get up at 4:30 a.m., put on long pants and a heavy,
long-sleeve shirt and face the prospect of spending the day picking
strawberries.
Such was my
fate as a young teenager. For three to four weeks each summer, we
would wake at the crack of dawn and be hauled off in a 1940's vintage
school bus to Farmer Rick Steffan's strawberry fields.
Each picker
was assigned a "row" by the "field boss." Most often, this "boss"
was one of our schoolteachers. I thought this seemed to be excessively
harsh punishment. After spending nearly nine months in Mr. Hargand's
math class, I now had to spend the next three weeks in the hot sun
while Mr. Hargand sat under the comforting shade of an umbrella,
cooler of iced tea at his side, barking at us to "pick faster."
Our task:
to pick as many strawberries as we could. The quicker we picked,
the quicker new berries would sprout on the plants.
Each picker
was equipped with a small cart that had two handles and a front
wheel. Imagine the framework of a wheelbarrow and you get the idea.
On top of the cart, we placed empty cardboard "crates." Each crate
held 12 small "hallocks" or boxes for strawberries. One would simply
pick the strawberries and place them in the hallocks. When the crate
was full, it was placed on the bottom of the cart and replaced with
an empty one. So it went, for six hours a day.
We did get
breaks for water and lunch, yet I likened the experience to Paul
Newman toiling on the chain gang with George Kennedy in "Cool Hand
Luke."
The outhouse
was of pioneer vintage-old barn boards constructed with four sides,
a roof, bench with a hole and a pit in the ground. This was long
before the fiberglass honey buckets one sees on construction sites
today.
When our crates
were full, we wheeled them over to the "boss" at the weighing station.
Each picker had a "ticket" pinned to their shirt. The boss would
punch out the appropriate number on the ticket and that number would
then serve as the means of tallying our pay.
Payment was
made in cash at the end of each day. I remember it was not much,
about 90 cents for a full crate of fresh strawberries.
I was not
one of the faster pickers. If I was lucky, and did not talk too
much or throw too many berries at my friends, I might fill six crates
a day. $5.40 for six hours of sitting in dirt.
The Pratt
twins, Lorelei and Lorraine, were the fastest pickers. It infuriated
us that they could each fill nine or ten crates a day. Their goal
was to make $100 in a Summer so that they could buy a portable RCA
color television, which they easily accomplished.
Although some
commercial fields of strawberries are now harvested by machine,
handpicking is still the preferred method for harvesting delicate
strawberry varieties and the demand for pickers remains high.
In America,
the season for strawberries begins in late May and runs through
the end of August, hitting a peak in mid-June. I prefer to buy locally
grown strawberries that have been picked at the peak of ripeness
and brought from the fields the same day.
For me, the
best way to enjoy fresh strawberries is in simple, uncomplicated
desserts, such as angel food cake with strawberries and cream. I
remember that for ladies "bridge club" luncheons, my Grandmother
Ross would bake her special "Pink Chiffon Cake," a dense type of
Angel Food Cake. A few drops of red food coloring created the allure
that this was a special treat for the ladies.
A typical
"Ladies Lunch" of the 1930's would start with a "Grapefruit and
Candied Cherry" appetizer, then a main-course of "Crab Louis in
Avocado" salad. I suspect that playing bridge was only an excuse
for the ladies to catch up on the latest town gossip. All in good
fun, and good food.
The secret
to Grandma's success was that she instinctively knew when the egg
whites were beaten to the right "peaks."
When the cake
was finished baking, Grandmother brought it out of the oven and
immediately inverted the cake pan over an empty 7-Up bottle. This
allowed the cake to cool and prevented it from collapsing. The resulting
cake was a work of beauty only a Grandmother could create. It was
an ethereal cake, spongy and with a subtle sweetness so light and
airy that literally, "the angels could carry into heaven."
We spent many
Summer evenings on the porch at Grandma's house, enjoying angel
food cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream.
I will leave
the picking, and the early wake-up call, to someone else.
Angel
Food Cake with Strawberries and Cream
Strawberry
Napoleon with Lemon Curd and Cream
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