The sugary, jam-like, sweet and child-like scent of strawberries characterises the end of spring and the beginning of summer. Strawberries symbolize love, innocence and a sweet character for everybody from the Norse, the people of the Balkan lands, medieval Christians (who often included a border of strawberries in paintings of the Virgin Mary) and Shakespeare, who decorated Desdemona’s ill-fated handkerchief with them to symbolize her purity and innocence. But despite the association with childhood, the strawberry is also a medicinal powerhouse. In Asia, strawberries were used in a detoxifying and anti-ageing tea during the reign of the Yellow Emperor in 2600 BC. The Romans used a tea of strawberries to lift the spirits and relieve digestive complaints. In fact, scientists have recently discovered a fascinating relationship between intake of strawberries, table sugar, and blood sugar levels. As you might expect, excess intake of table sugar (in a serving size of 5-6 teaspoons) can result in an unwanted blood sugar spike. However, if you simultaneously consume approximately 1 cup of strawberries, this spike of blood sugar is not seen. Polyphenols present in the strawberries help to regulate this blood sugar response, which is good news for all those suffering from type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetic symptoms. Additionally, strawberries help to lower the levels of inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP) when consumed several days per week in everyday amounts of approximately one cup. This can aid arthritis sufferers as well as diabetics. The vitamin C present in fresh strawberries also boosts the immune system and aids the skin; as well as vitamin C, strawberries also contain ellagic acid, which visibly prevents collagen destruction and inflammatory response (two major factors in the development of wrinkles) in human skin cells following exposure to UV-B rays. This perhaps explains why a certain slightly eccentric noblewoman of Napoleon’s court, Madame Tallien, used to add 22 pounds of crushed strawberries to her bathwater! In the 13th century, strawberries were berry was prescribed for diarrhea and digestive upset, while the leaves and roots were supposed to relieve gout. The berry itself was rubbed on the skin to ease the pain of sunburn and to relieve blemishes. The juice of the strawberry has its own special prescription – it brightened discolored teeth. It was also meant to cleanse the blood and liver, which was the use attributed to them by the Native American indians, who called the strawberry ‘wuttahimneash’, which means ‘ the heart-seed berry’. They were already eating strawberries when the Colonists arrived, and invented the all-American strawberry shortcake, which they made by filling cornbread with crushed strawberries.
In the Balkan regions, the strawberry plays a role in their own Cinderella-like story of a beautiful young woman who won her step-mother and sisters’ ire by distracting her stepsisters’ potential suitors with her beauty. In order to get her out of the house, the step-relatives would concoct impossible tasks for her to accomplish, such as collecting strawberries in winter, in the hopes that during one of these impossible forays she would die from the cold and never return. However, this sweet-spirited young woman won the support of the Season-Spirits, who assisted her in her tasks and later caused the downfall of her horrid relatives. The moral of the story is that to be ‘sweet in life and character’, like the strawberries themselves, is it’s own reward. Despite this association with sweetness and purity, strawberries did not win favour with the famous 12th century abbess, feminist and mystic Saint Hildegard von Bingern, who declared strawberries unfit for consumption because they grewalong the ground where any evil thing such as a toad might have crawled over them. Her words had such an effect that strawberries became considered poisonous in Europe. It was not until the famous botanist, Karl von Linne (whose Latinized name was Carolus Linnaeus) ate a diet of only strawberries to prove them edible in defiance of common thinking that people began to regularly consume strawberries again. Strawberries are now so well-loved and widely produced in the western world that there are even towns called Strawberry in Arizona and in California!
