Strawberries

The story of the strawberry as we know it begins in 1714. When finishing an assignment in Chile, the cartographer and navy officer François Amédée Frézier put a couple of wild strawberry plants in his luggage. Some experimenting in his garden in Brittany resulted in a large strawberry, which is the basis of the now more than 600 varieties that we know today. When you go to a local market, you can choose between a tray of Gariguette, Ciflorette, Darselect, Cléry, Magnum, Mara des Bois, Charlotte or Cirafine. Some species can already be found in April, others as late as October. In the valley of the Dordogne there are about fifty producers, which together yield 400 tons of strawberries every year. The strawberries are intended for the local market, which means that the focus lies on quality.

We buy our strawberries at the weekly market in Souillac, on the “marché des producteurs” which takes place every week during the summer season in the center of Souillac, or in the Marché des Halles, a shop with local products next to the Lelerc supermarket in Souillac.