Читать книгу The Taste of Britain - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Страница 302

Although wood strawberries, Fragaria vesca, are native to Britain, the history of the strawberry in its modern form really begins in the early nineteenth century. At this time, Michael Keen, a market gardener in Isleworth (Middlesex), used the Chilean strawberry (F. chiloensis) to produce improved varieties. The first of these was Keen’s Imperial; the second which he raised, Keen’s Seedling, caused a sensation, and became very important both in its own right and as a parent of other varieties. There was much interest in strawberry growing during the mid-nineteenth century. One of the most influential of Victorian nurserymen, Thomas Laxton at Bedford, bred Royal Sovereign. This was esteemed for its appearance and flavour and for the fact that it cropped early.

Royal Sovereign lost commercial favour around the time of World War II as producers, driven by necessity to cultivate disease-resistant stock and by the changing needs of processors, began using the Cambridge varieties (bred from the 1930s at the Horticultural Research Station of Cambridge University) and their descendants. For many years, Royal Sovereign was grown only by amateurs, but interest is reviving among commercial producers on the south-east coast of England. This region came into its own as a centre of market gardening at the end of the Victorian period. London, its chief customer, had outgrown its eighteenth-century envelope and was fast expanding into land on its western side which had until then been the main area of commercial gardening. Simultaneously, efficient railway transport enabled producers to base themselves further away than those who had depended on water-borne delivery, carriage on foot or by cart, or conveyance in panniers slung each side of a donkey. The counties along the south-eastern coast of England have been noted areas for strawberry production for over 100 years. Hampshire was known for its early strawberries, a trade now severely eroded by foreign imports.