Went to a park in Seattle yesterday for exercise and to enjoy the sun and beach. Noticed a couple guys picking fruit from an evergreen bush which was loaded and ripening. One informed us it was a strawberry tree and he had done some research on it to know it was safe to eat.
So we decided to try them, found them tasty and gathered enough to make jelly. We just finished breakfast this morning and I must say that the jelly was very nice. So if you happen to see a tree in the wild that has fruit like this, it may be worth your time to try.
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Hardy zones 10 to 7, and very borderline though I’ve seen it in someones landscaping in Lexington, KY. Probably a little hardier than loquats.
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The Strawberry Arbutus.
Yes, you can eat them, but I never found one that had much flavor.
More like a dead- ripe Transparent Apple.
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The ones I’ve had taste like a gritty plum. Jam is probably a good use for them. There is a reason minor fruits stay minor…
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I have found the interior of the fruits to be uniformly smooth and pasty. The rubbery, spiky shell can be tedious to remove completely.
Some of them can be quite sweet, including ones I had in the 1990s at the Seattle waterfront. They were growing in big wooden planters.
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Remind me of fruits on Kousa dogwoods. Not a favorite food, but a snack if you missed lunch or a bear got your backpack with your food while on a hike!
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Pretty common (& relative to a native) landscape tree here in CA. Many consider the dropping fruit a cleaning nuisance.
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Understandable, ones trash is another’s treasure
This one is unique here and I will try to clone it
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I like these fruits, but need to point out that they seem to be at their best quality for fresh eating when almost fully red, but if you wait till they are 100% red the texture declines and becomes more mushy and gritty. Basically, try them at various stages of ripeness to get a feel for when to pick because in my experience most people by default pick them over ripe and then decide “unedo” (I only eat one,).
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That’s interesting, I’ve found that the only way I do enjoy them (despite the mushy texture and grit) is extremely ripe, because any sooner than that and they give me that slightly puckering sensation similar to an unripe banana. I think I may be overly sensitive to whatever chemical causes that sensation, though, because I’ve seen people eat bananas far more underripe than I can enjoy.
Edit: Google tells me it’s just tannins, but I thought it feels more like oxalic acid or something hard to place. Definitely a slight astringency that leaves my tongue feeling unpleasant.
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Is it the separated inner flesh that is or becomes gritty, or does the grit come from the spiky rind at any stage of ripeness?
I’m not sure how much of the grittiness is from the inside vs. the skin, but when it’s very ripe and mushy the texture contrast highlights the grit.
Huh… I don’t recall encountering astringency like that in them. Maybe you’ve picked them more in the orange stage? I like to let them go mostly red, but often with the slightest blush of the orange not fully turned red since they are firmer at that stage.
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I’ve only tried them in the red stage, but I really do think I’m extra sensitive to astringency in general, and I’ve only tried them from two local bushes (albeit many times over the last few years), and I only noticed that from one of them, which was taller and more tree-like, so I wonder if it may be something only present in some specimens. After having that happen a few times, I only eat them now if they easily squish between finger and thumb, but maybe I’ll try them in a more firm stage from other bushes this year.
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I like them, and though they may not suit everyone’s tastes, I think they are generally pretty underrated. I concur with the comparison to Cornus kousa. Not really that similar in flavor or texture really, but there’s kind of a similar je ne sais quoi about it.