Known by a single name, like Dylan or Kreskin or Cher, they're the celebrities of Oregon's spring food scene. Awaited with breathless anticipation, the name "Hoods" is whispered by strawberry fanatics with growing desperation each June. This year it started in mid-May as the farmers' market season opened, and when mid-June rolled around with none in sight, vendors tried staving off angry mobs of string-bag wielding rioters by offering the mobs hot-house strawberries or other varieties like Seascapes and Selvas.
Unbelievably sweet, with that deep, strawberry flavor, Hoods are also very delicate and don't keep once they're picked. They need to be eaten or processed the day they're brought home or there's going be a mushy, moldy mess the next day. So get your share of this fleeting pleasure at your local farmers' market while they last or you'll be waiting till next spring's crop flashes its face in public again.
I've got some Hoods in my garden, but I'm lazy about picking them and something keeps eating them before I get the chance to harvest very many. A neighborhood cat, perhaps? Do cats eat strawberries? Anyway, the few that I have managed to claim for myself have been quite tasty...
ReplyDeleteI know that certain Corgis of my acquaintance like to browse the neighbors' strawberry patch on occasion. Cats...I don't know.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the rest of the harvest!
I spied squirrels nibbling on mine...in between corgi visits that is. :-)
ReplyDeleteGuilty as charged...though it looks like the string fence works pretty well!
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