Here are some but not all of the thoughts I entertained while picking strawberries under the unforgiving sun at a local orchard this week. I’m a fool. What happens if I pass out? How long will it take somebody to realize someone has fainted in their strawberry patch since I was out there all alone? And in a worst case scenario how will they identify the body since I left my wallet in the car?
And finally this: Any politician who scapegoats migrants and migrant workers ought to first have to work several hours or days picking fruit in the blazing sun. I’m not comparing my brief experience with the myriad challenges faced by seasonal farm labor. I’m just saying it deepened my respect for their work.
My misguided notion to pick strawberries started when my younger daughter offered to make strawberry jam if I supplied her with the fruit. My older daughter had taken her twins to the same orchard a few days earlier and returned with tales of the girls gorging themselves on blueberries and strawberries. The place sounded like a veritable Garden of Eden. Or the song “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” where Burl Ives sang, “Of the lemonade springs where the bluebirds sing.”
I should have been forewarned when I drove up to the front gate, stated my strawberry picking intentions and the farmhand on duty directed me to an unmarked area beyond the apple orchards and vegetable fields because the marked strawberry patches had been picked clean. I’ve never been very good at following directions or instructions — it’s to that, in part, that I attribute my dismal S.A.T. scores — and after driving around for about fifteen minutes fruitlessly, no pun intended, I paused to ask some workers picking apple trees if they knew where the strawberries were hiding? They confidently pointed me in the right direction.
Now that I think of it they were probably referring to the strawberry patch that had been picked clean because when I arrived I saw what appeared to be strawberry bushes but without any of their characteristic ruby red fruit decorated with seeds punctuating their surface. A smarter person than me would have thought, “I’m in the wrong place.” Since I tend to overthink things — another reason for my 580 math score — I assumed the fruit was buried deep within the bushes. Maybe to protect it from predators. But mostly because nature, in my limited hands-on experience, doesn’t typically surrender its bounty without a struggle.
And there were strawberries. Just not a lot of them. I had decided to go picking on a Monday, assuming that I’d be able to avoid the weekend crowds. And I did. There was nobody else in sight. But it eventually dawned on me that the reason I had acres of plants to myself is because the Saturday and Sunday hoards had denuded the bushes.
What I lack in intelligence I more than make up for in self-destructive ambition, a willingness to push myself to the limit and beyond. If I spotted a strawberry in the distance I’d go over to the plant, greet it, drop to my hands and knees, pick it and deposit it in the four quart cardboard box that I’d purchased upon arrival. At this rate it would take me hours to fill the container but I remained undaunted.
And not just because there were so few berries. Every time I rose back to my feet I felt light-headed and had to pause before continuing. I don’t know whether that’s because it was hot, though not hellishly so; that I was poorly hydrated, I left my water bottle back at the car (receding ever further into the distance as I searched far and wide for strawberries); because I’m a seventy-one year old male; or all of the above. To me a big haul was maybe four or five berries within several feet of each other. Already softening big, beautiful specimens were heartbreaking and left behind. Pride forced to resist the temptation to pick partially ripe berries.
I lost count of time but I suspect I was out there a couple of hours before I filled my box to the rim. I was slightly disappointed when I went to pay for my haul and nobody congratulated me for my fortitude. I got them home and shared them sparingly before depositing them in the freezer. My daughter, a professional chef, says it won’t harm the taste of the jam and might even enhance it.
Here’s the thing. I like strawberry jam. What’s not to like? But it’s sort of generic. I’ve never spread some onto a piece of toast and thought, “That’s the best strawberry jam I’ve ever had.” Raspberry jam, on the other hand, offers a more subtle, sophisticated taste and a greater range of flavor and texture.
I wondered whether those farm workers picking Macs off the apple trees were watching me out of the corner of their eye placing bets on how long it would take me to quit or collapse. However, whenever my daughter gets around to making strawberry jam it’s unlikely I’ll be sharing it with anybody else.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found be found on Substack.
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