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

[Letspovertyplayagain]

🤷 genuinely wondering now.....

I said yabu because I don’t really think of them as a luxury as such, more just like a nicer food item like charcuterie or good cheese. They’re not so expensive that we don’t buy them, but I’m price conscious enough to not just buy loads and loads all the time. I will buy one or two punnets for the week if they aren’t too pricey (as prices for those do really fluctuate even week to week), but then when they’re gone, they’re gone. I mainly buy them and other berries to put in lunch boxes as a healthy snack.

I can see how someone would see them as a luxury though as they are expensive. There are certainly cheaper ways to eat strawberries (frozen, namely) and/or get vitamin C.

No they aren't. I grow my own. I certainly don't begrudge anyone on benefits a punnet and I'm not sure why anyone would.

I never get why MN is so obsessed with class - surely it's a matter of how much money you have available rather than class?

I think that pretty much any fruit that aren't apples, pears, banana or oranges (or similar) are luxury as they cost so much for what you get.

Though apples are getting ridiculously expensive in some places too.

DelphiniumBlue · Today 19:49
Any fruit is a luxury out of season. Not sure what being middle class has to do with it, you can be middle class and skint.”

This. Seasonal fruit is cheaper and usually tastes so much better, too.

Is this a TAAT? The increase in benefits one?

Even in season there are cheaper fruit options.

I imagine they cost a lot in carbon when imported out of season?
Is carbon middle-class or not?

Aldi has british strawberries in now and I bought a punnet. Only eat the British ones when in season and don't have them the rest of the year
But yeah they are a luxury some weeks for me
Can't remember the price off hand but say £4 for 2 punnets and that's 10% of my weekly shop. But I try and budget for them over summer as I adore them

Out of season yes... but in the summer no not really.

@GnomeDePlume @BewareTheBeardedDragon
My strawberry patch is in my back garden - a raised bed made with some 6" X 4" timber so not even that deep - it has forget-me-nots and poppies that have self seeded mixed in - all grow like weeds - birds of a feather and all that - I can't imagine anyone having problems growing them. We only make jam with them because we can't eat them fast enough when they ripen. There's nothing classy about strawberries IMHO... But my asparagus patch is a different matter.

Maybe I need to try again. Do you faff around with straw or mulch to keep the fruit off the soil? Do you have to water them in the summer much? @larkstar

@Kpo58 , you near a Home Bargains? Last I checked, the one near me does a 1kg bag of apples for £1! They're odd sizes and sometimes different varieties, but perfectly fine! I think they must be "not pretty enough" for supermarkets or something.

@BewareTheBeardedDragon I'm about to strip off all the dead leaves and put some fish, blood and bone down. I have another 2m X 3m bed which I put 6 sungold tomato plants in and there are 2 4-cane wigwams for French climbing beans. When I water and feed the tomatoes with Tomorite I also do the strawberries but I'm far from rigorous - I remember if it's been a hot day - actually I quite like watering plants in the evening after a warm day. I put straw down last year for the first time - it's hard to say if it really made much difference - slugs nibble a few but mainly I go out every night and pick strawberries that are ripe or nearly so. Strawberries don't keep long so I find it's actually better to make conserve than jam done if the time - you cover the strawberries with sugar for 24 hours, boil it all up, leave it for a day then boil it up again and jar.

@larkstar @BewareTheBeardedDragon

We have a couple of large strawberry beds. To keep the strawberry production up we start a new bed every couple of years - the luxury of a large allotment is having the space to do this.

We dont put straw down but do put some wood chip down (if we can find space between the plants). We net to keep the pigeons off.

We dont make jam as no one in the family likes strawberry jam (I make blackberry jelly). Instead the strawberries are eaten fresh or used to make drinks (strawberry vodka, strawberry cider, strawberry wine).

i wouldnt say that applied to strawberries as you get the Moroccan and Spanish ones out of season which are Same Price as British ones are in season but no where near as nice

No they're just fruit. I don't buy them out of season because they're horrible but over summer we always have them.

Back to the original question - for me strawberries aren't a luxury item any more than any other of the allotment crops are. In a way they are all luxury items as they are the freshest produce.

So far we have had home grown daffodils and we are now enjoying home grown rhubarb (time to get some rhubarb gin going!).

Moving through the season we will be enjoying home grown beans, peas, potatoes, carrots, blackberries/currants (for jelly and blackberry/currant vodka), tomatoes (used fresh, dried, made into sauces).

@larkstar ooh, I do have some fish blood and bone in the garage so I will put some around my few remaining languishing plants and try to remember to feed them. 🤞😂

@GnomeDePlume your flavoured drinks sound amazing!

@BewareTheBeardedDragon they are delicious especially when made into a long drink.

Also easy. You need the fruit, the spirit, some sugar and a large container to put it in for a week or so.

The strawberry cider is experimental! We make a lot of apple and pear cider so have the necessary equipment. We found 20kg of strawberries languishing in the bottom of the freezer and thought 'why not give it a go'.

Bloody hell - 20kg?!? Hope it works!

Or have you concluded the experiment now? That sounded rude - it wasn't meant to. Growing 20kg of strawberries seems like a dream to me ☺️

I’m struggling to comprehend what class has to do with a food item that costs a couple of quid?

Someone posted a thread about the increase in benefits and said it meant she'd be able to get her kid's strawberries in the food shop now and OP decided to make a whole thread about wether strawberries are middle class as a result

@BewareTheBeardedDragon it's drinkable! We decided it needed to age a bit but we should probably now give it another go.

We ended up with so many 'spare' because the early hot weather had brought them on faster than we could use them so we were freezing bags at a time. We then went on holiday and they got forgotten about as when we got back the strawberry season was over.

For us strawberries are kind of the 'lesser' crop. We have them because we have the space. We are all about the blackberries when it comes to soft fruit.

To me shop bought blackberries are the strange luxury purchase. You see tiny trays of a handful of blackberries being sold for ££ when you could probably go round the border of the carpark outside and pick many times more for free!

We eat a combination of three or four fruits with a boiled egg and rye bread toast most days for breakfast - of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, grapes, mango, kiwi and melon.

DH was told by a dietician at cardiac rehab, she struggles to recommend any cereal for breakfast, as they have very little nutritional content - except perhaps Shredded Wheat, Oatibix and Oatiflakes, as oats reduce cholesterol and he won’t eat porridge. Processed meats aren’t good either for cholesterol, so that leaves eggs the rest of the time for breakfast. We always read how berries are particularly good for us, as part of the “rainbow”, I guess?