British supermarket Waitrose is marketing “bubbleberries” in some of its stores, describing them as resembling a small strawberry that is “beautifully fragrant, with the unmistakable taste of bubblegum”. They are admittedly better smelling and tastier than most strawberries in the supermarket. So what is their secret?
If you buy strawberries in a shop today, it is almost certain that they will be the “garden strawberry”, a hybrid species of Fragaria × ananassa. This seems to have arisen quite fortuitously in 18th-century Europe, as an accidental cross between two imports into France, Fragaria chiloensis from the western side of America and Fragaria virginiana, from the eastern side of America. This hybrid acquired the characteristics of fruit that was both large and red, and over the centuries breeders have striven to produce strawberries with these characteristics, as well as others including long shelf-life and freedom from disease. Read more...
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