To think that strawberries smell of sewage / rotten meat?

I hate the smell of strawberries. Love the taste, but have to be ripe, local and in season

Surprised that everyone keeps them in the fridge! I find it kills the flavour stone dead. I keep them on the counter and eat them that day. They smell and taste delicious to me

I live alone and have given up buying fresh berry fruits now. Too many times I've gone to the fridge for a handful and there are hairs growing on them Ugh. I just want them to last more than two days please! I've tried the vinegar bath thing, but it's a bloody faff TBH.

So now I buy the frozen strawbs, rasps, and blueberries in Aldi. I roughly blend them in my chopper with avocado and kiwi, and that mix can last for ages in a fridge box with vents at the top. I put the mix on Greek yogurt, ice cream, and on my crushed up weetabix. LOL. They taste gorgeous, I suppose because they are fast frozen very soon after picking. No contest for me now.

BTW I love the smell of berries, never had the odd smell issue.

It is like with coriander or durian - either heaven or hell. I think we have rather innate or genetic responses to some smells and tastes. I don't mind strawberries, but jackfruit, ugh.

I love strawberries but we have to eat them straight away - otherwise, even still in the sealed punnet in the fridge, they stink out the entire house with a horrible bin-lorry smell. Nobody else in the family can smell it though! I'm actually quite relieved to see this thread because I genuinely thought it was just me.

100% agree, OP

I'll buy a fresh tub of beautiful strawberries, put them in the fridge, open the fridge door an hour later and it smells like farts. It's weird!

Yes! You can smell them the moment you open the fridge. Doesn’t stop me eating them, but they do smell bad. I think it’s like the asparagus/ coriander gene, as other people are disagreeing.

I was reading something recently which might be related to this.

Apparently some people say that Asparagus makes their pee smell weird and some people it doesn’t. Some scientific research suggests that it’s actually a chemical compound that some people can smell and some can’t… so it is in your pee if you ate asparagus but maybe you just can’t smell it.

maybe this is similar it’s just something specific you can smell and others can’t?

I have never thought that re strawberries and can’t imagine it tbh

I wonder if it’s one of those “peculiar to certain people” things, like some people can’t smell certain flowers?

Also find cucumbers hit and miss - sometimes I find they taste fishy

I don’t recall an overpowering smell with bought ones but the ones I pick in the allotment smell amazing. I sniff them sometimes as I am walking back and I do use manure on the strawberry beds.

People always say I’m mad when I tell them I don’t like strawberries - I agree with you! The smell like a fridge with old food in it. I don’t like raw tomatoes either because I hate the smell of greenhouses and they taste like that to me.

Also cannot stand Spinach (idk why but it turns my tummy, it feels like it’s dirty even when I wash it)

I think you should see a GP. Something is seriously wrong with your sense of smell @crankycurmudgeon !!!

I have to say op i agree with you.
The other day i got some feom tje shop and 2 days later the smell was rank it was pungent in the fridge i put them in the bin.

The ones in Asda at the moment taste really sweet and delicious, but they do smell a bit like trumps.

Papaya doesn't really smell of anything to me but I agree about strawberries. I spent such a long time hunting through the fridge, cleaning it all the time etc. to get the source of the horrible smell until I realised it was strawberries

All strawberries have that smell to them for me - even fresh, homegrown and farm-shop ones! I still like the taste, but there's definitely a base note of bin juice. Maybe it's a chemical thing, like people who find coriander soapy?

O for instance don’t like the smell of papaya or mangoes or spring onions ( but love spring onions in recipes)

I only buy at roadside or M&S or Waitrose and eat within 2 days - best ones I had were when we lived in Denmark - i think they go on the turn quite quick . I do think though some people process smells differently -

I am intrigued by the coriander - papaya link. I do like coriander and I am convinced papaya smells of vomit. I lived in East Africa for some years and it was served everywhere 🤢 the one thing that seemed to neutralise the vom smell was squeezing fresh lime on it. Papaya is apparently insanely good for your guts.

Love strawberries though.

I think supermarket berries tend to rot from the inside out so you don’t know how bad they are sometimes. Best to buy local / fresh or grow your own if possible

If you find papaya smelly, do you like coriander?

Sounds like parosmia - where smells get mixed up. I remember lots of people experiencing this in 1st wave of covid.

I like the smell of strawberries, but raspberries smell like that to me. Also raw cashews smell like fish. I don't like the smell of celery either.