To think that strawberries smell of sewage / rotten meat?

[crankycurmudgeon]

While strawberries taste OK to me, I find the smell really overpowering. Especially when ripe, the overwhelming sense I get is the sickly, pungent smell you get from sewage / rotting meat / summer dustbins. I find it so off-putting, particularly because the smell overwhelms the fridge.

I get the same pungent poopy smell with some tropical fruits, particularly papaya. It just makes me want to gag.

Am I going mad, or is this something other people experience? I can only think that my brain processes a chemical other people find delicious as something disgusting.

Anyway:

YANBU - get that punnet of poop out of my fridge!
AIBU - nah mate, strawberries are the the fragrant nectar of the UK summer!

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

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 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.

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

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?

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?

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.

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!

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.

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 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.

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

Bin juice is spot on...