Strawberries and the garden of earthly delights

Late spring is a time of new beginnings in the Towerwater garden. It is a time of expectation, hope and delight. Expectation of how all the seeds and seedlings will turn the garden into a culinary feast. Hope, that some of the seedlings will survive the myriad of pests devouring them before they can even make their second set of leaves. Delight, when Mother Nature blesses us with her abundance.

Early in the season one delights in the few vegetables available for harvesting. The small pickings of late peas, carrots, beetroot, spinach, curly kale, and kohlrabi. In the fruit section we can enjoy some paw paws and lots of strawberries.

The strawberry bed is a delight for the senses. Walking past the grapevines into the vegetable garden, the fragrance of ripe strawberries fills the air. You smell them before you notice them with their plump ripeness among the deep green of their leaves.

The simple pastoral scene of a strawberry bed full of ripe fruit, conjures up the pleasures of summer desserts. It is as if one can taste the red fruit bursting into one’s mouth simply by sight. The view of the ordered bed of strawberries and beds of vegetable seedlings is a far cry from Hieronymus Bosch’s painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, which he painted between 1490 and 1510.

Details depicting strawberries in the painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights

What made me think of the painting was the depiction of people enjoying strawberries in the centre panel of the triptych. Strange how some paintings can make an impact on one. I can’t say that it is a favourite painting of mine. It is more the fantastical depiction of people enjoying pleasures of the flesh in what I would describe as a futuristic garden. I found it very different from other Renaissance paintings.

In June 2001, at the end of my six-week backpacking holiday in Spain, I visited the Museo del Prado in Madrid, where I saw the painting.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm

One can appreciate the detail in the actual painting much better because it is quite large. It is a painting filled with fantastical detail. Looking at the triptych, it is clear that what separates paradise, depicted by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the panel on the left, and Hell depicted in the panel on the right, is earthly sin, depicted in the central panel. There are other fruit and berries offered seductively from one person to another in this scene, but somehow the strawberry is elevated to a different level as a symbol of earthly pleasures.

Did the Garden of Earthly Delights cement the idea of the strawberry as an aphrodisiac, perfect for seduction? Perhaps the fact that the fruit is shaped like a red heart has something to do with it.  

I don’t know if my strawberries seduce the myriad of pests that eat them, but if I look at the amount of fruit that they can damage overnight, I can imagine them enjoying the ripe fruit like the characters depicted by Hieronymus Bosch in his painting. Luckily, we manage to rescue at least 2kg of strawberries a week at the peak of the season.

Hulling strawberries on the kitchen stoep

The picking of strawberries is enough to make me reach for one of my cookbooks in the Towerwater library to find a way of preserving these “earthly delights” for a teatime or cocktail seduction. With enough stock of last year’s strawberry liqueur left, we opted to make strawberry jam this year.

Towerwater organic strawberry jam

Ingredients:

2 kg Organic strawberries
Juice of 2 lemons (90ml)
1.8 kg Sugar (warmed)

Method:
Hull the strawberries and weigh them. You will need at least 1.8kg of hulled fruit. Halve the strawberries and place them in a ceramic bowl. You can lightly crush them, depending on how fine you would like the fruit to be in your jam.

Put the strawberries and lemon juice in a preserving pot an bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until the strawberries are soft.

Add the warmed sugar to the strawberry mixture and dissolve the sugar over a low heat.

Increase the heat and boil the mixture rapidly, without stirring, for 15 minutes or until it reaches setting point. Remove the pot from the heat to test. The sugar thermometer should read 104°C. If you do not have a sugar thermometer, you can use the cold plate test.

With the pan off the heat, lightly skim off any scum from the surface of the jam. Cool the jam slightly.

Pour the jam into warmed sterilized jars, to within 3mm of the tops. Seal the jars and label.

Notes:

Warmed Sugar – Sugar will dissolve quicker in the fruit mixture if it is warmed first. Put the oven on its lowest setting. Weigh the sugar and place it in an oven proof bowl. Warm the sugar in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Cold plate test – place a saucer in the freezer. Drop a little jam on the cold plate. If the jam forms a skin, and wrinkles when it is pushed with a finger, it should have reached setting point.

I would like to think of Towerwater’s garden as a delight where one can be seduced to relax and enjoy serenity. Perhaps with tea and scones served with organic strawberry jam.

Other Strawberry posts on this blog

Black pepper and strawberry gin sorbet 

Strawberries and the pursuit of happiness

Strawberry Vinegar

Extroverted Strawberries

Daiquiris at Dusk