Italian wild woodland strawberries with aged balsamic vinegar, cream and a whisper of sugar: the oldest strawberry preparation in the world
Origin: Emilia-Romagna & Central Italy
From the journey of Strawberry.
Fragoline di bosco, woodland strawberries, are Fragaria vesca, the wild species that has grown across Europe and Asia since the Mesolithic, the strawberry that Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny wrote about, the fruit that medieval monks cultivated in monastery gardens as much for its perfume as its flavour. They are tiny, barely larger than a thumbnail, but their flavour is an order of magnitude more intense than any garden strawberry: more aromatic, more floral, sharper, with a wild berry quality that no commercial variety has ever replicated. In Italy they grow in mountain forests from the Alps to the Apennines, and in season they appear briefly at markets in small cardboard cartons, priced high and gone in days. The Italian way with them is radically simple: a small bowl, a little sugar, perhaps a thread of aged balsamic vinegar from Modena, and a spoonful of cold heavy cream or panna. Nothing more is needed or appropriate. The balsamic (itself a product of the same Emilian landscape where the finest fragoline are found) has a natural affinity with the wild berry: both are intensely concentrated, both carry the memory of fruit and time. This dish is not a recipe in any conventional sense. It is an act of restraint in service of something irreplaceable.
The season for fragoline di bosco is brief; late May through July in the Italian mountains. Outside Italy, some specialist farms in the UK, France, and North America grow Fragaria vesca commercially under the name fraises des bois or alpine strawberries. They can also be found at farmers' markets in season. If using crème fraîche instead of cream, the slight acidity works beautifully against the balsamic. A small glass of chilled Moscato d'Asti alongside is the Emilian way.
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