Kitchen Monkey

29 April 2008

Court number 1 left strawberry less!

Can you just imagine the height of the Tennis calendar and Wimbledon not only famous for the tennis and celebrities, and of course the odd sing song from certain famous artists to entertain all of us during the great British summertime weather without the symbol of decades, of course it is Wimbledon’s famous strawberries & cream.

It was recently announced that due to a shortage of EU workers Wimbledon may well be without its famous strawberries this year, due to the shortage of workers to pick the fruits, the strawberries could simply be last to rot at picking time.

I couldn’t help but recall many hours of fruit and potato picking undertaken in my youth, shall I say. Each holiday friends and I would descend upon local farms to see if we could get a job to pick their crop. I have to say it was hard work but we had fun too. Being outdoors in some of the fabulous British sunny days was great, but no matter what the weather the crop had to be harvested. Potato picking was back breaking; you would kid yourself you could last a whole week. I can almost smell that broken soil smell, as you picked the emerging potato crop from the freshly dug up furrows made by the tractor you followed up and down the field. Each day we would stand at various meeting points in the villages as the farmer’s would come around with a trailer collecting all of us, to take us to the orchards or fields and then of course at the end of the day they would return you absolutely shattered and covered in soil or whatever you were picking. We would break during the day for packed lunches which would take with us, all sitting together exchanging stories and then of course we looked forward to being paid our wages in cash then. Depending on the farmer and the crop sometimes you were paid by the weight collected, others paid you by the day. This sometimes would cause quite a brawl to get on to certain farmers trailers for the better pay. It’s strange how you look back and remember how rich we all felt each week as we collected out hard earned pay. Of course many a time we were also sent home with crop in hand such as box of fruit or bag of potato’s as a reward.

You never seem to hear of students doing this today, obviously working directives and health and safety has changed a great deal, but this never did my friends and I any harm. If anything it taught us team work and competitiveness. We would bet amongst each other, which one of us could get to the other end of the field first or collect the first basket, with the dreaded forfeits for the last person to reach the targets set, which use to be awful!
The thought of the strawberries being left to rot in the fields seems absolutely scandalous!

Send me your stories; do students still pick fruits and potatoes in your area? to jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk and I shall pick a winner and surprise them with a meal, go on you could have a winner in you, it always great to hear from you.