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Strawberries and Cream
Procure the fruit when it is freshly gathered and just ripe. If it is not to be eaten immediately, keep it in a cool place till wanted; but the fresher it is the better. Pick the strawberries, and remove every imperfect and unsound berry. Do not wash them unless it is absolutely necessary. If, however, they are dusty or not quite fresh, they may be cleansed and freshened by taking them in handfuls and passing them quickly through a basin of cold water. They should not be allowed to remain in it one instant. If the strawberries have been gathered in rainy weather, it is very desirable that this cleansing process should be performed. Strawberries are very delicious served with thick cream (Devonshire cream is the best) and finely-powdered sugar. These accompaniments should be sent to table separately, as if the sugar is put upon them, even for a short time, it will draw out their juice and change their colour.
Almost nothing here needs updating, but two words mean something different now than they did when Cassell's was printed, and one instruction is the whole point of the entry.
- Sugar separately, alwaysThis is the hinge. Sugar draws juice out of cut or hulled berries within minutes and turns them slack and dulled. Hull and sugar at the table, or set the bowl of sugar alongside and let each person dip.
- "Finely-powdered sugar"In a British book of this period this generally means sugar pounded or ground fine from loaf sugar, closest today to caster sugar. Modern confectioners' or icing sugar is not the same thing: it carries cornflour and will coat the fruit in a chalky film.
- Devonshire creamClotted cream, scalded and set until it forms a crust; the UK standard requires at least 55% butterfat. Widely sold in tubs in Britain, harder to find elsewhere. A well-chilled double or heavy cream, barely whipped, is the usual substitute.
- WashingThe advice holds. Strawberries are porous and take up water fast, which dilutes the flavour and softens the flesh. If they need rinsing, do it whole with hulls on, dunk and lift, then spread on a cloth to dry.
- Storage"A cool place" meant a larder, not a refrigerator. Fridge cold blunts strawberry aroma considerably; if you have chilled them, bring them back to room temperature for half an hour before serving.
- QuantityNo yield is given. Reckon on 4-6 oz of fruit and about 2 tablespoons of cream per person as a dessert portion.
Cassell's includes this among its short entries on handling fruit rather than as a composed dish, which tells you how the Victorian household kitchen thought about soft fruit: the cook's job was selection, timing and restraint, not transformation. Strawberries were an early-summer luxury with a season of a few weeks, so freshness of the kind described here — gathered that morning, unwashed, unsugared until the last moment — was both an ideal and a practical necessity. The pairing with cream is generally traced in English writing to the sixteenth century and is often attributed to Cardinal Wolsey's kitchens, though that story is traditional rather than documented. Its association with Wimbledon only cemented what was already the standard English way to eat the fruit. The preference for Devonshire cream reflects the West Country's dominance in clotted cream, which travelled better than fresh cream did before refrigeration.