Time for my annual post about strawberry picking. I went first thing this morning, arriving just as they were opening for the day at 7:30. The field was quiet, sun was shining, it wasn't hot yet. It was perfect.
Did you know there is a berry picking etiquette? Well, any U-pick situation has common sense manners. When we picked in South Haven the activity was something you did while on vacation and it could be Katie Bar the Door with manners.
1. Pick ALL of the fruit on the plant, not just the pretties on top. Move the leaves around. Pick all of it. Sometimes the best ones are hiding.
2. Stay in your lane. If someone is picking a row or a bush find a different one, this one's taken.
3. Please stay off your phone. Some of us are there for the peace and quiet
4. Yes, it's fun to taste but the object is to pay the farmer for his crop not see how much you can eat without paying for it. This isn't Costco.
5. Keep tabs on your kid - toddler or teen - doesn't matter.
I went alone this morning and in 20 minutes picked 6.25 pounds
The pie. I bragged to a friend the pies weigh ten pounds. Close but not quite!
"No," he said.
"What?"
He said he grew up in a family of migrant workers. He can't/won't eat anything he had to bend over in the hot sun all day long and pick in order to live.
Now, I pick my own because I love it and thank goodness physically can still do it. Many, many/most people don't. They rely on going to the farm stand and buying their berries already picked. Someone once told me she wasn't going to go out in that hot sun and do it herself.
Well.
My feeling is this. If you eat food and didn't grow it or pick it yourself then someone else did.
Someone else bent over in that hot sun all day and did it for you, and like the trend now to thank a veteran when you see one, thanking a migrant worker isn't too far off. There are some - and I won't name names but you all know which side of the fence I'M on - want all migrants gone from the US.
I would love to see SOME people snarking around talking this talk bending over in the fields picking their food.
Just sayin'.
Some of the things that folks on the other side of the fence are doing I think may be bringing unintended attention to them. For example, would we previously have thought about migrant workers if there wasn't a push to remove them? I think, in an abstract way, many of us knew they were out there, but never really SAW them. And now we do. So maybe there's a silver lining there? I've never picked strawberries, but I've done blueberries and they're almost as close to the ground. I appreciate folks who do pick (and grow) the food we eat, but maybe I need to make sure to thank them more publicly too?!
ReplyDeletethey look delish! i didn't get any this year...i'm not able to pick but i had many years of doing just that...strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and as a kid gooseberries...
ReplyDeleteNothing nicer than sun ripened strawberries, and picking your own makes them extra special. I don't know much about what goes on in the fields here but I do know that our health service would collapse without all the migrant workers - from Dr's down to cleaners - and most of us are very grateful to have them here. Enjoy your pie. x
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