Organica Crunchy Fruits
Strawberries are among the most popular fruits in Germany. Even outside of the fruit basket, they are always in the vanguard. In case of yoghurt, ice cream or jam, the demand for the flavor strawberry is particularly high. The strawberry is not a berry though. From a botanical point of view it belongs to the rose family, especially to the genus of aggregate fruits. The actual fruits of the strawberry are the small yellow or green nutlets on the red receptacle.
People have always loved eating strawberries. Earlier, one had to go into the forest to do so. Wild strawberries are wonderfully sweet but unfortunately also quite small. In order to fill a bowl with it, you have to search for a long time. In the Middle Ages people started to grow them on larger areas. Gardeners succeeded in accelerating the ripening process, but they could not increase the size of the wild strawberry. Until today, they are wonderfully fragrant, but only about 1 cm in size. When the first European settlers arrived in the New World, this no longer mattered. Because they discovered a new strain of strawberries in today's Canada. These were scarlet red, deliciously fruity and much bigger than their European relatives. Under the name ”Virginia strawberry“ it was soon to be found in any botanical garden of Europe. On their way into the Wild West settlers always found new subspecies of the Virginia strawberry. Already in 1820 70 different varieties were known. In the early 18th century also strawberries from South America were brought to Europe. Especially the Chilean strawberry created a sensation with its large fruit. 1750 a whole new strawberry emerged in Amsterdam. The gardener Antoine Nicolas Duchesne crossed the Virginia with the Chilean strawberry to the ”Fragaria x ananassa“. This is considered as the progenitor of the strawberry as we know it today, and is also known as garden strawberry. From this basic form over a thousand subspecies were bred. However, only a small part of them is cultivated professionally.
After harvesting the strawberries should be eaten as soon as possible. They quickly lose their firmness because the red fruits are very sensitive to pressure. The safest way to enjoy strawberries throughout the whole year is in a dried state. This is usually done by freeze-drying. Fresh fruit contains between 80 and 90 percent water, dried fruit, only a third or less. Tropical fruits can be easily peeled, cored and placed to dry in the sun at appropriate temperatures after harvest. For hygienic reasons that is not conducted on a large scale, though. The majority of dried fruits in the Western world is freeze-dried. During flash freezing the water freezes in the fruits. The aim during freeze-drying is extracting this water and still obtaining the cavity structure of the fruit. This is achieved through ”sublimation“. In this process, the ice crystals in the fruit transition directly into the gaseous state without having to be liquefied previously. Small fruits preserve their original size to a great extent, but already strawberries are reduced to pea size.
The French company Organica from L'Hay-les-Roses, a city located 9 kilometers south of Paris, is dedicated to the gentle freeze-drying of organic strawberries, organic blueberries, organic blackberries and organic pineapples. 112 g of fresh blueberries and blackberries reduce their weight to 16 g, pineapple pieces even to 12 g. Dried fruits have a sponge-like structure. This makes them ideal for refining cereals or smoothies. When milk is poured into muesli or when water is poured into the smoothie, the cells fill up again. A 12-g-pack with dried strawberries equals about 120 g of fresh strawberries. This way you can enjoy pure organic fruits even outside of the harvest season.
