\n
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n
Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRead more<\/span><\/svg><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWimbledon is all about strawberries and cream (and of course tennis). The club itself describes strawberries and cream as \u201ca true icon of The Championships\u201d.<\/p>\n
While a meal at one of the club\u2019s restaurants can set you back \u00a3130 or more, a bowl of the iconic dish is a modest \u00a32.70 (up from \u00a32.50 in 2024 \u2013 the first price rise in 15 years). In 2024 visitors munched their way through nearly 2 million berries.<\/p>\n
Strawberries and cream has a long association with Wimbledon. Even before lawn tennis was added to its activities, the All England Croquet Club (now the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club) was serving strawberries and cream to visitors. They would have expected no less. <\/p>\n
Across Victorian Britain, strawberries and cream was a staple of garden parties of all sorts. Private affairs, political fundraisers and county cricket matches all typically served the dish.<\/p>\n
Alongside string bands and games of lawn tennis, strawberries and cream were among the pleasures that Victorians expected to encounter at a f\u00eate or garden party. As a result, one statistician wrote in the Dundee Evening Telegraph<\/em> in 1889, Londoners alone consumed 12 million berries a day over the summer. <\/p>\nAt that rate, he explained, if strawberries were available year-round, Britons would spend 24 times more on strawberries than on missionary work, and twice as much as on education.<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>Strawberries and cream have become a Wimbledon staple (Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nBut of course strawberries and cream were not available year-round. They were a delightful treat of the summer and the delicate berries did not last. Victorian newspapers, such as the Illustrated London News<\/em>, complained that even the fruits on sale in London were a sad, squashed travesty of those eaten in the countryside, to say nothing of London\u2019s cream, which might have been watered down.<\/p>\nWimbledon\u2019s lawn tennis championships were held in late June or early July \u2013 in the midst, in other words, of strawberry season.<\/p>\n
Eating strawberries and cream had long been a distinctly seasonal pleasure. Seventeenth-century menu plans for elegant banquets offered strawberries, either with cream or steeped (rather deliciously, and I recommend you try this) in rose water, white wine, and sugar \u2013 as a suitable dish for the month of June.<\/p>\n
They were, in the view of the 17th-century gardener John Parkinson, \u201ca cooling and pleasant dish in the hot summer season\u201d. They were, in short, a summer food. That was still the case in the 1870s, when the Wimbledon tennis championship was established.<\/p>\n
This changed dramatically with the invention of mechanical refrigeration. From the late 19th century, new technologies enabled the global movement of chilled and frozen foods across vast oceans and spaces.<\/p>\n
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\n<\/p>\n
open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>A spectator enjoys the traditional strawberries and cream at Wimbledon (Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nDomestic ice-boxes and refrigerators followed. These modern devices were hailed as freeing us from the tyranny of seasons. As the Ladies Home Journal <\/em>magazine proclaimed triumphantly in 1929: \u201cRefrigeration wipes out seasons and distances \u2026 We grow perishable products in the regions best suited to them instead of being forced to stick close to the large markets.\u201d <\/p>\nEating seasonally, or locally, was a tiresome constraint and it was liberating to be able to enjoy foods at whatever time of year we desired.<\/p>\n
As a result, points out historian Susan Friedberg, our concept of \u201cfreshness\u201d was transformed. Consumers \u201cstopped expecting fresh food to be just-picked or just-caught or just-killed. Instead, they expected to find and keep it in the refrigerator.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, when we can buy strawberries year round, we have largely lost the excitement that used to accompany advent of the strawberry season. Colour supplements and supermarket magazines do their best to drum up some enthusiasm for British strawberries, but we are far from the days when poets could rhapsodise about dairy maids \u201cdreaming of their strawberries and cream\u201d in the month of May.<\/p>\n
Strawberries and cream, once a \u201crare service\u201d enjoyed in the short months from late April to early July, are now a season-less staple, available virtually year round from the global networks of commercial growers who supply Britain\u2019s food. <\/p>\n
The special buzz about Wimbledon\u2019s iconic dish of strawberries and cream is a glimpse into an earlier time, and reminds us that it was not always so.<\/p>\n
Rebecca Earle is a Professor of History at the University of Warwick<\/em><\/p>\nThis article was originally published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. Read the <\/em>original article<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more Wimbledon is all about strawberries and cream (and of course tennis). The club itself describes strawberries and cream as \u201ca true icon of The Championships\u201d. While a meal at one of the club\u2019s restaurants can set you back \u00a3130 or more, a bowl of the iconic dish is a modest \u00a32.70 (up from \u00a32.50 in 2024 \u2013 the first price rise in 15 years). In 2024 visitors munched their way through nearly 2 million berries. Strawberries and cream has a long association with Wimbledon. Even before lawn tennis was added to its activities, the All England Croquet Club (now the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club) was serving strawberries and cream to visitors. They would have expected no less. Across Victorian Britain, strawberries and cream was a staple of garden parties of all sorts. Private affairs, political fundraisers and county cricket matches all typically served the dish. Alongside string bands and games of lawn tennis, strawberries and cream were among the pleasures that Victorians expected to encounter at a f\u00eate or garden…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}