Is there a sweeter, more-anticipated time of year than strawberry season? May is officially National Strawberry Month, and what better way to celebrate than visiting a local farmer’s market or venturing out to a pick-your-own farm, such as Smith-Perry Berries in Ooltewah, and bring home a bushel?
Strawberries have always figured prominently on Southern tables earlier in the year than for most of the rest of the country. And we’re fortunate for that.
Commercially produced berries from California, Mexico and South America are available year-round, but the only ones really worth bothering about are the local berries that are gathered at their peak.
While such wonders are available to us, you don’t need a recipe to make the best strawberry dessert ever devised: just pick the sweetest and ripest berries, wash and core them and put them into individual serving bowls; put some a sugar bowl on the table for each person to sprinkle on to taste, and pass with it a pitcher of thick, heavy cream. You’ll hear no complaints coming from your family.
But when there’s company and you want something a tad bit fancier, you can take almost exactly the same ingredients and, with a bare minimum of effort, dress them up into a luscious fruit fool.
It isn’t what you’re thinking it is: The word “fool” can actually mean several things other than one of your in-laws or a member of an opposing political party. In this case, it’s an ancient English dessert, one that’s a simple, yet sumptuous, confection of whipped cream and fruit. It was once a popular dessert, but not seen too often anymore, if at all. And that’s a shame. There are few days that I don’t get an email from some food website touting vintage family recipes, but never have I seen one for a fruit fool.
Sometimes the fruit for a fool is cooked before it’s folded into the whipped cream, but here, the only “cooking” that the berries spend a couple of minutes in a bowl with sugar and a little whiskey, or, if they’re not very acidic, a spoonful of the juice from the orange since the recipe calls for the zest only.
Incidentally, this recipe is from an old ledger stored along with family papers and other important documents that were passed down to me from my great-grandparents in Virginia. The ledger is filled with budgets, expenses and this recipe for Strawberry Fool. It makes me smile when I read through it and wonder why the recipe is included among the monthly household accounts. I can only imagine that it must have been pretty important and a go-to favorite when strawberry season was in full swing.
Strawberry Fool
Wash the berries and set aside four small, nicely shaped ones for garnish. Stem and core the remaining berries and cut them into thick slices. Place them in a bowl and sprinkle lightly with sugar - how much will depend on how sweet the berries are already. Add the bourbon and orange zest. Cover and set them aside to macerate for half an hour.
Mash the berries to a pulp with a potato masher. Don’t use a blender or food processor, which will liquefy them. You want some chunks.
In a separate bowl, beat the cream until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold in the strawberries until the mixture is uniform. Spoon the fool into stemmed glasses. Thoroughly chill the fool for at least one hour. Just before serving them, garnish the tops with the sprigs of mint and reserved berries.
Contact Anne Braly at [email protected] or annebraly.com
Strawberries have always figured prominently on Southern tables earlier in the year than for most of the rest of the country. And we’re fortunate for that.
Commercially produced berries from California, Mexico and South America are available year-round, but the only ones really worth bothering about are the local berries that are gathered at their peak.
While such wonders are available to us, you don’t need a recipe to make the best strawberry dessert ever devised: just pick the sweetest and ripest berries, wash and core them and put them into individual serving bowls; put some a sugar bowl on the table for each person to sprinkle on to taste, and pass with it a pitcher of thick, heavy cream. You’ll hear no complaints coming from your family.
But when there’s company and you want something a tad bit fancier, you can take almost exactly the same ingredients and, with a bare minimum of effort, dress them up into a luscious fruit fool.
It isn’t what you’re thinking it is: The word “fool” can actually mean several things other than one of your in-laws or a member of an opposing political party. In this case, it’s an ancient English dessert, one that’s a simple, yet sumptuous, confection of whipped cream and fruit. It was once a popular dessert, but not seen too often anymore, if at all. And that’s a shame. There are few days that I don’t get an email from some food website touting vintage family recipes, but never have I seen one for a fruit fool.
Sometimes the fruit for a fool is cooked before it’s folded into the whipped cream, but here, the only “cooking” that the berries spend a couple of minutes in a bowl with sugar and a little whiskey, or, if they’re not very acidic, a spoonful of the juice from the orange since the recipe calls for the zest only.
Incidentally, this recipe is from an old ledger stored along with family papers and other important documents that were passed down to me from my great-grandparents in Virginia. The ledger is filled with budgets, expenses and this recipe for Strawberry Fool. It makes me smile when I read through it and wonder why the recipe is included among the monthly household accounts. I can only imagine that it must have been pretty important and a go-to favorite when strawberry season was in full swing.
Strawberry Fool
- 1 pint strawberries
- Sugar
- 2 Tbsp. bourbon
- Freshly grated zest of one orange
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 4 sprigs fresh mint
Wash the berries and set aside four small, nicely shaped ones for garnish. Stem and core the remaining berries and cut them into thick slices. Place them in a bowl and sprinkle lightly with sugar - how much will depend on how sweet the berries are already. Add the bourbon and orange zest. Cover and set them aside to macerate for half an hour.
Mash the berries to a pulp with a potato masher. Don’t use a blender or food processor, which will liquefy them. You want some chunks.
In a separate bowl, beat the cream until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold in the strawberries until the mixture is uniform. Spoon the fool into stemmed glasses. Thoroughly chill the fool for at least one hour. Just before serving them, garnish the tops with the sprigs of mint and reserved berries.
Contact Anne Braly at [email protected] or annebraly.com
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