Are strawberries are luxury item? If you are middle class?

[Letspovertyplayagain]

🤷 genuinely wondering now.....

They are a very healthy food though, and are nowhere as expensive or hard to get as cherries.

I think they can be seen as a luxury item. They are often paired with champagne, dipped in chocolate or added as a garnish to the top of a dessert in a restaurant. Unless the dessert is pear flavoured, you won’t get a pear on top of your dessert and you certainly aren’t getting a pear in your champagne! I think they can still be seen as a luxury item because they can exist as a dessert in their own right. Again, a pear is nice but it’s not a great dessert, strawberries and cream is.

They are more expensive than other fruits with a shorter shelf life and a punnet doesn’t last long compared to a bag of apples/oranges/pears. However, there are a lot of things that people think poor people shouldn’t buy, I don’t really think strawberries should be on the list. If strawberries make someone happy and they can afford it or celebrating a benefits increase means they can actually eat fresh fruit and that the fruit they pick, then so be it.

I do tend to just buy British when they are season because you just can’t beat the taste of them. We do PYO and I spend a stupid amount on strawberries but actually it’s quite a cheap day out and then we tend to just live off strawberries so then they stop being a luxury. I can’t wait to do PYO this summer and this thread has reminded me it’s nearly strawberry season - better go check FB out and see how the plants are coming along!

In the Summer, no. They are grown in abundance within 5 miles of our house.

In Spring, Autumn and Winter they should not be eaten in Scotland as they are out of season. Eat local!

We found it very simple to do in Scotland. This is a fascinating book on the subject https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The100-MileDiet with real challenges we did not face.

The only exception we make is in the 'hungry gap' in March. We eat fair trade exotic and imported fruit and veg throughout that month.

They don't taste very nice out of season- best to wait until the English ones are available in June and then they will be cheaper as well.

Not a luxury item though- fruit is a staple food.

I do not think they are a luxury, but I suppose it depends on your budget. If you are struggling with basics, they might be.

To me they are pretty essential as due to fussy DC only liking berries, grapes and pears in terms of fruit. It is driving me mad. He used to eat everything but it feels like the pool of tolerable fruit and veg shrinks all the time. So I always have strawberries and raspberries. We do also use frozen berries, a lot of which are blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries we grow ourselves.

No

If it's not lentils and chickpeas it's usually classed as too expensive and only for the fortunate on MN food threads though.

It is, but 2 and 3 year olds really don't give a shit.

Even in summer I don't see strawberries sold as cheaply as bananas.

When I was a child in the 80's, we picked wild blueberries. They were tastier than the ones in shops now in my head.

I live on the East Coast of Scotland surrounded by berry fields, summers were spent picking them and eating them while we picked, in teenage years summer holidays were spent packing them and grading them. So they are very cheap here in the summer apart from some fancy ones where you get 9 of them in a box for about £5. Would not eat them out of season at all.

I only buy it then when they're reduced, which they frequently are, and generally only in spring/summer when they're both nicer and cheaper.

Dunno what class I am so not sure this info helps Op

Umm no they are not.

I'm a bit confused by the middle class bit but I'd say when I buy strawberries I consider it a treat. In fairness I'd likely by some cream too.

I tend to shop little and often as I pass 2 supermarkets everyday. I usually get 1 'treat' per basket full. That could be in terms of money eg a nice piece of fresh salmon, or in terms of health a family triffle. I will ammend by list if there's something on offer. I didn't used to but now, for financial reasons I'll buy something that I don't particular fancy but is cheap eg I bought some diced carrot and sweede for 10p. I'd planned on having peas and sweetcorn but had this instead. This would allow me to buy my strawberries and cream

@Snugglemonkey 😂 yeah. Their hands are faster than lighting. Plus they would have run away by that point ✨

Strawberries have always been expensive and have always been a treat in our middle class household. I refuse to buy them out of season - they taste of nothing.

I agree

We have an allotment and grow a lot of strawberries. DH was digging around in the freezer the other day and found 20kgs of them which we had forgotten about - it is a big freezer.

We thawed them out, added some yeast & sugar and made a kind of strawberry cider. It's very good!

I posted on the thread about takeaways that we spend £50 a week on takeaways and we can afford that...but yes, I do feel like strawberries are a luxury!

Really because I'm a huge strawberry snob, and will only buy in season British strawbs. They're my absolute favourite - and my three boys' favourite as well - and we can easily get through a punnet each in a session. So yeah, they are expensive when I think about it like that!

They are an expensive way to eat fruit for most of the year and only taste good in the summer.

Ah, but if you're middle class you'd only eat your home grown own ;-)

I have a 2m X 3m strawberry patch that produces heaps of fruit - we easily make 15-20 jars of jam from it, make some ice cream, eat a bit fresh - honestly they grow like weeds and cost nothing - a £5 bag of well rotted manure which I put on in Nov/Dec.

Depends what class sparkling wine they go in

This confuses the strawberry class issue!

Having a few strawberry plants in terracotta pots on the terrace (not patio) is definitely middle class. Having a strawberry bed on the allotment is possibly working class.

Making strawberry jam for own consumption is possibly middle class. Making strawberry jam to sell at a farmers market is heading towards genteel agriculture.

It's all very complicated!

It’s only on mumsnet that all these middle class people only buy strawberries a couple of time a year because they are so luxurious 😂

No, because they are tasteless when flown in from overseas. They're the opposite of luxurious actually when not in season!

So yes, I only buy (and pick) them in summer when they're in season and brimming with flavour and smell amazing.

But class has absolutely nothing to do with it..!

Lucky you - I've tried and tried and failed every time. They just won't fruit in my garden except a few which the bloody wood lice eat.