Latest news with #strawberries
BBC News
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
M&S strawberries and cream sandwich: Japanese fruit sando hits high streets
Strawberries and cream – an iconic British combo since the 1800s. But do they belong together in a sandwich?M&S has rolled out a limited-edition strawberries and cream sandwich, made with strawberries, whipped cream cheese and sweetened bread, which it says is inspired by the "viral Japanese fruit sando". The supermarket chain says it was its top-selling sandwich the two days after its sandwiches are available at some Japanese bakeries in the UK, but M&S's offering appears to be the first time they have been widely available on supermarket idea of serving fruit in a sandwich might sound unusual but it's nothing new in Japan. Known as "furutsu sando", they became popular after Japanese fruit shops opened parlours selling desserts for customers to sample their recently became sought-after around the world after going viral on social media, with Western tourists on TikTok scrambling to get their hands on the version sold in Japanese convenience store chain 7-Eleven. Fruit sandwiches are typically made of sweetened, soft, spongy white bread filled with whipped cream and fruit, typically strawberries or clementine, says Shuko Oda, chef at Koya restaurant in London. They're usually cut into triangles so that the fruit is on display."It looks quite pretty," Shuko says, adding that the sandwiches are a "fun play on texture".Some people in Japan make them at home, but they're more commonly bought from convenience stores, food halls or dedicated fruit sando stores, she says. People often enjoy them as a snack with tea or coffee or served on a plate alongside savoury sandwiches. In the UK, it's not as uncommon as you might think to pair fruit with slices of bread for a sandwich. Think of banana sandwiches, served with the fruit sliced or mashed, or the nostalgia of childhood jam sandwiches. Coronation chicken sandwiches are made with dried apricots or sultanas, is a sandwich, at its core? Does it have to be savoury? And does it have to even be made with typical wheat bread - take the jibarito, for example, which is made with fried plantain instead. What about Scandinavian open sandwiches? And if they count as sandwiches, then what about French toast topped with fruit and sauce? The Oxford English Dictionary says sandwiches are made of two thin slices of bread, usually buttered, "with a savoury… or other filling". Though humans have been making bread for thousands of years, the sandwich as we know it today is said to owe its popularity to John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. The story goes that he asked his staff to bring him meat between two slices of bread so he could continue playing cards without stopping to of the sandwiches we eat in the UK would raise eyebrows around the world. Take crisp sarnies, coronation chicken sandwiches, or the humble chip butty. But if you're feeling inspired by Japan's strawberry sandos and want to up your sandwich game, here are some more sandwiches from around the world. Bánh mì Bánh mì is a Vietnamese sandwich served in a baguette, typically filled with meat, pate, pickles and spicy sauces. It's usually eaten for breakfast. BBC Food has a recipe made with sweet and spicy pork belly and chilli sauce. Croque monsieur Croque monsieur is a French sandwich served hot with gooey, melted cheese. It's made with white sauce, cheese, ham and mustard, cooked under the grill. To mix it up, served with a fried egg on top and - voila - you have a croque madame. Po' boy A po' boy, which comes from "poor boy", is a New Orleans street food sandwich that celebrates Louisiana's seafood. A huge variety of fillings are available, but the most popular include fried shrimp, crab or lobster nestled among lettuce, remoulade and pickles. BBC Food has a simplified version you can make at home more easily using frozen scampi. Arepa Rather than using bread made from typical wheat flour, arepas are made using corn flour. They're also popular in Colombia, but it's Venezuela where they're most often made into sandwiches. One popular filling is Reina Pepiada, which combines chicken, avocado and coriander. Spaghetti or noodle sandwiches We're no strangers to doubling up on carbs in the UK - and the Australian spaghetti jaffle draws on the same principle. It is made by serving leftover spaghetti in tomato sauce inside a toastie. At convenience stores across Japan, you can also pick up a yakisoba pan - noodles served in a hot dog bun. Francesinha Francesinha, a Portuguese sandwich originating in Porto, is a cheese and meat lover's heaven. The impressive structure is made by filling a lightly toasted bread with a steak, sausage, cheese and ham. More cheese is then placed on top, and the whole sandwich is typically baked in the oven until the cheese melts and then served with an egg on top. A spicy sauce made with Port, beer and tomato is then poured over the whole thing. If that wasn't filling enough already, it's usually served with chips on the side. Additional reporting by Polly Weeks, BBC Food
CTV News
8 hours ago
- General
- CTV News
How is strawberry season shaping up?
CTV's Karis Mapp explains why strawberry fans may have to dig deep this year and why farmers are watching out for a fungal threat. Summer is here and some strawberry lovers are eager to head out into the field and get their pick of the juiciest berries. But this year, strawberry enthusiasts may have to work a little harder to find the delectable delight. Last week the team at Brantwood Farms in Brantford warned pickers that the crop was less than overwhelming. 'We were really keen on how many strawberries we thought we had, but when we went to pick them, we realized we didn't have as many as we thought we had,' Andrew Pate from Brantwood Farms said. In a social media post on June 20, Brantwood Farms wrote, 'Strawberry picking is VERY light. We have not had the heat needed for the strawberries to ripen.' However, their luck changed as a heatwave hit the area. 'Everything started to come on all at the same time, and now we can't pick them fast enough,' Pate told CTV News on Friday. Strawberry Brantwood Farms Strawberries sat in baskets at Brantwood Farms in Brantford, Ont. on June 27, 2025. (Karis Mapp/CTV News) 'We still have lots of strawberries out there. It does just take you a little bit longer to find them than some years we have in the past. But, we haven't had too many people not able to fill their baskets yet.' Some eager fans were out in the field searching for the best berries. 'You really have to dig deep,' strawberry picker Meghan Hill advised. 'You really have to look under the leaves and pick it from the bottom.' 'They're a bit on the small side,' fellow picker Justin Hale said. 'We have noticed that.' But Justin said it was all part of the fun. 'It's like a treasure hunt. Right?' he said. Strawberry Brantwood Farms Strawberries from Brantwood Farms were pictured on June 27, 2025. (Karis Mapp/CTV News) Keeping an eye on a fungal threat The weather is not the only factor farmers are closely watching. A fungal disease, Neopestalotiopsis, is threatening some strawberry crops across the country. 'The plants gradually start to wilt and they eventually die,' Youbin Zheng, professor at the University of Guelph, said. 'That's going to reduce your yields, and you may not have any harvest.' There is no known cure for the disease, and it can spread quickly from plant to plant. A fungicide can keep it at bay, but it can't eliminate it completely. 'If you have rain underneath the infected [plants] you can splash to another plant,' Zheng said. Strawberry Brantwood Farms Strawberries from Brantwood Farms were pictured on June 27, 2025. (Karis Mapp/CTV News) Neopestalotiopsis was first reported in Florida in 2017. Since then, it has been found in Mexico and Canada. The first recorded Canadian case was in Ontario in 2020. 'We are aware of it. We haven't found it in our field yet,' Pate said. 'We are scouting for it. We are worried about it. Haven't found it yet, which is a good thing.' With files from Daniel Otis and Karis Mapp.
Times
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Times
The sweet sandwich is simply not food
The combination of strawberries, cream cheese and sweet bread arguably makes the sandwich an outright dessert TOM REGESTER F illing and nutritious. Conveniently portable. Capable of being eaten without the mediating instruments of cutlery. Simple, yet susceptible of endless variation. However justly maligned the long history of British cuisine is, the sandwich is one edible artefact this country can take some pride in having bestowed on the world. The culinary conceit of using bread as a wrapper for other foodstuffs is one of those ideas that seems so natural it is hard to believe it had to be invented. Yet one of the sandwich's central strengths — its versatility — is also a source of danger. Its adaptability is easily abused. Does jam, or 'jelly', really belong in a sandwich? Do crisps? Other attempts to extend the genre simply testify to man's overweening hubris. Come winter, the chilly shelves of cafés are now routinely filled with sandwiches that purport to fit an entire Christmas dinner between two slices of bread. The latest attempt to desecrate the legacy of the 4th Earl of Sandwich comes courtesy of Marks & Spencer, where it is now possible to purchase a strawberries and cream sandwich. The 'limited edition Red Diamond Strawberry and Creme on soft, sweetened bread' is even more subversive than it seems. After all, the attempt to transform the savoury sandwich into a sweet snack brings inherent challenges. Here, the combination of cream cheese, sweet bread, and the fact that the sandwich takes the form of a sinister, single sleeve, arguably make the object an outright dessert. M&S, which pioneered the shop-bought sandwich in the late 1970s, is an innovator to be reckoned with. The strawberry sandwich has certainly given the internet's 'clickbait' food influencers something to chew on, as they film themselves sampling the novel delicacy. Yet it is hard not to think Britain's sandwich makers really ought to stick to the bread and butter methods of ages past.
CTV News
10 hours ago
- Climate
- CTV News
Nova Scotia enjoying strong season for berries so far
A combination of rain and sunshine has produced an abundance of berries in Nova Scotia. The strawberry fields in Wolfville, N.S., were busy Friday. 'They're the best,' says Patti Swinimer. The early season fruit seems especially good when you go to the fields and get them yourself. 'I find that it's more fun to pick your own strawberries and they just last longer than at the local grocery stores,' Madison Dawe says. It seems there are plenty of them. The combination of timely rain and sufficient sunshine has produced an abundance of berries. Jordan Eyamie, president of Horticulture Nova Scotia, says typically the first strawberry harvest yields about 1,000 quarts a day, but this year, they topped more than 6,700. 'The season is exploding,' says Eyamie. 'I would think that this season is going to be a good season, fingers crossed, because for strawberries at least, the past two years have been really rough.' Peach and cherry trees Peach and cherry trees are pictured. (Source: Jonathan MacInnis/CTV News Atlantic) Other provinces have been dealing with a fungus called Neopestalotiopsis (Neo-P). There is no known cure for the disease, which can spread quickly and affect all parts of the plant. Eyamie says fortunately it has not been found in Nova Scotia. Cherries are also susceptible to fungus but like strawberries, Peter Elderkin's crop is looking good. 'It's like a puzzle and the pieces so far are fitting together quite well and so far so good,' Elderkin says. Ladder A picker's ladder is pictured. (Source: Jonathan MacInnis/CTV News Atlantic) Still, he's keeping a close eye on them after losing half his harvest last year. 'So far, so good, although like last year, we had that one big rain storm, and that came right in the middle of cherries and it just destroyed the crop of cherries,' he says. Elderkin's cherries will be ripe within the next 10 days. His attention will then turn to peaches and apples, both of which look to be on the verge of producing quality crops. Cherries Peter Elderkin's cherries are nearly ripe. (Source: Jonathan MacInnis/CTV News Atlantic) For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
How strawberries and cream were a rare and exciting treat for Victorians – and then became a Wimbledon icon
Wimbledon is all about strawberries and cream (and of course tennis). The club itself describes strawberries and cream as 'a true icon of The Championships'. While a meal at one of the club's restaurants can set you back £130 or more, a bowl of the iconic dish is a modest £2.70 (up from £2.50 in 2024 – the first price rise in 15 years). In 2024 visitors munched their way through nearly 2 million berries. Strawberries and cream has a long association with Wimbledon. Even before lawn tennis was added to its activities, the All England Croquet Club (now the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club) was serving strawberries and cream to visitors. They would have expected no less. Across Victorian Britain, strawberries and cream was a staple of garden parties of all sorts. Private affairs, political fundraisers and county cricket matches all typically served the dish. Alongside string bands and games of lawn tennis, strawberries and cream were among the pleasures that Victorians expected to encounter at a fête or garden party. As a result, one statistician wrote in the Dundee Evening Telegraph in 1889, Londoners alone consumed 12 million berries a day over the summer. At that rate, he explained, if strawberries were available year-round, Britons would spend 24 times more on strawberries than on missionary work, and twice as much as on education. Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here. But of course strawberries and cream were not available year-round. They were a delightful treat of the summer and the delicate berries did not last. Victorian newspapers, such as the Illustrated London News, complained that even the fruits on sale in London were a sad, squashed travesty of those eaten in the countryside, to say nothing of London's cream, which might have been watered down. Wimbledon's lawn tennis championships were held in late June or early July – in the midst, in other words, of strawberry season. Eating strawberries and cream had long been a distinctly seasonal pleasure. Seventeenth-century menu plans for elegant banquets offered strawberries, either with cream or steeped (rather deliciously, and I recommend you try this) in rose water, white wine, and sugar – as a suitable dish for the month of June. They were, in the view of the 17th-century gardener John Parkinson, 'a cooling and pleasant dish in the hot summer season'. They were, in short, a summer food. That was still the case in the 1870s, when the Wimbledon tennis championship was established. This changed dramatically with the invention of mechanical refrigeration. From the late 19th century, new technologies enabled the global movement of chilled and frozen foods across vast oceans and spaces. Domestic ice-boxes and refrigerators followed. These modern devices were hailed as freeing us from the tyranny of seasons. As the Ladies Home Journal magazine proclaimed triumphantly in 1929: 'Refrigeration wipes out seasons and distances … We grow perishable products in the regions best suited to them instead of being forced to stick close to the large markets.' Eating seasonally, or locally, was a tiresome constraint and it was liberating to be able to enjoy foods at whatever time of year we desired. As a result, points out historian Susan Friedberg, our concept of 'freshness' was transformed. Consumers 'stopped expecting fresh food to be just-picked or just-caught or just-killed. Instead, they expected to find and keep it in the refrigerator.' Today, when we can buy strawberries year round, we have largely lost the excitement that used to accompany advent of the strawberry season. Colour supplements and supermarket magazines do their best to drum up some enthusiasm for British strawberries, but we are far from the days when poets could rhapsodise about dairy maids 'dreaming of their strawberries and cream' in the month of May. Strawberries and cream, once a 'rare service' enjoyed in the short months from late April to early July, are now a season-less staple, available virtually year round from the global networks of commercial growers who supply Britain's food. The special buzz about Wimbledon's iconic dish of strawberries and cream is a glimpse into an earlier time, and reminds us that it was not always so. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Rebecca Earle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
