Today, we are discussing a flavorful and refreshing fruit: the strawberry (la fraise). In the summer, you can find them in so many desserts — one French favorite is the “fraisier,” a Genoese sponge layer cake with butter cream, flavored with Kirsch, and with fresh strawberries – si bon! It is one of the (many…) staple cakes available in French pastry shops (pâtisseries).
Strawberry health benefits: Top 3 Reasons to Savor Them
To bake their masterpieces, pâtissiers (pastry cooks) often proudly use strawberries picked close to their bakeries, when possible of course. In fact, the other day, we saw a sign in a village boulangerie/pâtisserie (bakery/pastry shop) that said the pâtissier regretted to let his customers know that he had to use strawberries from outside the village to make his fraisers. Now that is determination to use local products isn’t it?
So for special occasions, enjoying strawberries in a fraisier is such a treat but we can hardly mention any strawberry health benefits there!
To ripe strawberry health benefits, simply enjoy them just as they are (much healthier without the butter cream!). For more details, check below our top 3 reasons to eat fresh strawberries. Enjoy and bon appétit!
Strawberry health benefits
Strawberry health benefits – Art of the Home Top 3 Reasons to Eat Strawberries:
- Strawberries are extra rich in vitamin C: about 80 mg of Vitamin C for 1 cup of strawberries, that is most that many fruits. But keep in mind that after 2 days of storage, your strawberries may have lost most of their vitamin C benefits so as we discussed in our article “Farmers Market Tips: How to Choose Flavorful Strawberries“, it is best to eat them right away.
- Strawberries are low in calories: strawberries contain a lot of water (about 90%) so they count only 26 calories for 1/2 cup of sliced strawberries! They are a great nutritious and delicious alternative to other high calorie snacks. Strawberries are a great partner to keep your weight in check.
- Strawberries can satisfy your craving for sweets: strawberries are full of sweetness so they are a healthy alternative to satisfy your sweet tooth. They make easy and healthy dessert. In France for example, a bowl of “fraises au sucre” is a summer classic. Wash and slice a few strawberries, sprinkle them with a tsp of sugar and voilà! They are also delicious sliced in yogurt and although a strawberry flavored yogurt cannot count for your daily serving a fruit, half a cup of plain yogurt with half a cup of sliced fresh strawberry certainly can and you get stronger bone at the same time!
Although in the United States, strawberries from California have become the supermarket customers’ preferred produce, I know you would love the strawberries grown here in Lancaster County by the Amish farmwives whose children sit patiently to sell them by the roadside just outside the house and the lovely home-garden. These are Swiss strawberries, and are much smaller with a brighter flavor, that were originally brought from Europe to Pennsylvania back in the 17th.century,( although my grandmother’s mother’s parents did not arrive from France until Napoleon had been taken to St.Helena ).
P.s. Our weather is seldom dry enough in May, to bake the egg-white and sugar meringue tarts on parchment paper slowly in the oven to make the crisp shells we like to fill with new strawberries (and eventually, roadside raspberries gathered by children in the summer) topped with whiipped cream or icecream. When the early fruit season is past, many restauranteurs opt to fill their meringue shells with Hot fudge over Frozen custard. I think peaches sliced and sugared would be just as keen but it is true that once you become spoiled by Peach short-cakes, there is no changing your preference. Farm wives also have less time in the growing season to keep an eye on the oven(and there are fewer “Summer kitchens” nowadays, which were originally additions to field-stone houses in our grandparents day). They are too busy putting up preserves and pickling for the cellar shelves, their favorite “Winter treats”.