Page:The family kitchen gardener - containing plain and accurate descriptions of all the different species and varieties of culinary vegetables (IA familykitchengar56buis).pdf/222

 .—The common practice of picking the fruit with the footstalks attached, is one of the very worst sys. tems, causing them to be handled and re-picked before they go to the table. Early in the morning take a vessel, basket, or box, of convenient size, and pick the fruit before it is softened by the sun. Lay hold of the calyx or cup at the base of the fruit, with the nail of the first finger and thumb of the left hand, and with the first finger of the right, give the fruit a gentle but quick draw, and it will come off into the hand without the least bruise or damage of any kind—and thus proceed till your vessel is full. Strawberries should go to the table without being turned or handled in any way, when the full, rich aroma of the fruit will be preserved. Those that are carried to market to be retailed for family use, should all be in portable boxes, in the same way as Raspberries. The present mode is disgusting in the extreme; large tubfuls, bruised and crushed, spooned into quart measures from vessels of very questionable character, in both color and appearance. The denizens carrying home their quantum of mashed matter, under the name of Strawberry, from such a mixture, can know little of the delicious aroma and rich flavor of the pure fruit called.