Have you ever heard of pineapple strawberries? If the answer is “no”, don’t worry – you are in good company. This fruit, at least in Europe, is a relatively recent “discovery”.
This is neither a joke nor a curious genetic manipulation. White strawberries ( pineberry in English) are real strawberries with a pineapple flavor, with red seeds and a white outline: the opposite of the strawberries that we are used to seeing this season on our tables and in the stalls of fruits.
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image credit: Emmbean/Wikimedia
These white strawberries, known since the 18th century, originating from South America. In particular, the original species was cultivated in Chile.
They were called Fragaria chiloensis and they looked a lot like todays. The difference is that the ones we know now were crossed with the red (virgin) strawberries that came from North America.
It is from this crossing that the pineberry was born, which has retained in its name part of the word pineapple, that is to say, pineapple. Its taste is in fact very close to the exotic fruit that we all know, creating a very special blend.
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image credit: Emmbean/Wikimedia
Interest in this original fruit has been quite low in the past, with the risk that it will almost disappear altogether.
Today, thanks to specific cultivation projects promoted over the past decade by various European farmers, we will come to know them a little more closely.
Cultivating them from seeds is not very easy, as it is a transplant, and if not done correctly, it risks creating a normal red strawberry plant.
In the market, despite efforts to make them popular, they are still quite rare. But if we find them, it costs nothing to taste them, also given their beneficial properties, very similar to those of traditional strawberries.