Springtime means asparagus and strawberries the Netherlands, and I've been buying strawberries nearly every week. They range from sort of hard and sour (from the supermarket Albert Heijn), to excellent (from the Saturday Market seller who yells aaard-bie-EE selling his aardbei), and horrible (from the Saturday Market seller who specializes in strawberries and asparagus, which I wrote about here).
Last week, I was walking around looking at my different options, comparing prices. And I finally decided to try Hollandse aardbei, or Dutch strawberries. Often the strawberries are from Spain, and those strawberries look "normal" and pointy. The Hollandse aarbei on the other hand, are positively spherical!
And these strawberries were so fragrant. They were sweet, but not honey sweet; it was more the fragrance that comes through your nose after you bite in, that really makes the difference. And unlike the huge strawberries that you can find at Costco, these strawberries are juicy and tender all the way through the middle (no hollow middles, or white cores). And because they're red all the way to the leaves as well, it was inevitable to eat a few leaves in the process. Even the leaves had a very mild, sweet taste.
