STRAWBERRY — LORE
Strawberry was gathered from gardens, woodland edges, meadows, and open ground where the runners spread freely through loose soil. Leaves were gathered young in spring or early summer and dried in shade. Roots were lifted in autumn after the fruiting season had ended.
The berries were eaten fresh when available, preserved with honey or sugar, dried, or prepared into syrups, wines, and vinegars. Leaves were dried for teas and infusions, while roots appeared less commonly in household preparations. The plant spread by creeping runners, forming new crowns each season. Older patches were divided and replanted to maintain healthy growth. Straw, leaves, or pine needles were often laid beneath the fruit to keep it from damp ground and decay.
The modern garden strawberry comes from the crossing of wild strawberry species during the eighteenth century. Earlier strawberries bore smaller fruit and were gathered from woodland edges and meadows or tended in monastery and cottage gardens. Through cultivation, larger and more productive plants spread throughout Europe and North America, becoming a familiar crop of gardens, fields, and household plots.
Strawberry returned each spring and was among the first fruits of the season. Its arrival marked the passing of frost and the beginning of summer harvests. The harvest was brief, ending before the arrival of later summer fruits.
In medieval Europe the strawberry was regarded as a sign of humility because its fruit rested close to the earth. The three-part leaf was sometimes associated with the Holy Trinity, and the plant appeared in religious paintings, monastery gardens, and illuminated manuscripts. Strawberry was associated with abundance and hospitality.
In England and Germany, wild strawberry patches were known to belong to fairies. Some traditions held that strawberry leaves served as resting places for fairies or carried the souls of infants to heaven. The fruit was also associated with love and faithful marriage, and was sometimes served to newly married couples as a sign of harmony, fertility, and a prosperous household.
In country tradition, children would search woodland paths and hedgerows for wild patches, while cultivated plants remained common in kitchen gardens.
Strawberry remained a familiar subject of the early herbals, where its fruit, leaves, and roots were recorded for household use and physic.
"Strawberry leaves are cold, dry, and binding, a singular remedy for
inflammations and wounds,
hot diseases in the throat; they stop fluxes and the terms, cool the heat of the stomach,
and the inflammations of the liver. The best way is to boil them in barley water."
— Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal (1653).