Once a week, I think on Saturday mornings, the fruit and veggie man would come calling in his old Dodge Brothers truck. He’d blow the horn, and housewives on our block, including my mother, would go to meet him and bargain for his wares. Like the fish man with his wagon and horse, who came on another day, he would bring the market to us. At that time of my very young life, that was the closest we got to a supermarket, an American invention that had not yet arrived in 1940s Cape Town.
As summers came around, there was a great rarity on offer. My mother would return to our kitchen with the most special of gifts: a tiny wicker basket lined with leaves on which rested a few small strawberries. Perhaps just enough so my father, mother and I could each have three, maybe four.
Carefully washed and on a plate, they sat there like little jewels, to be consumed with care and murmurs of pleasure. The leafy ends were twisted off so precisely that no fruit was lost. Sometimes, we would have a small bowl of sweet cream, into which each strawberry was dipped. But that was only on special occasions. I can’t quite remember, but perhaps mother closed the drapes so the neighbors wouldn’t see our extravagance, or feel envious.
I grew up thinking that strawberries were a kind of non-money currency, like tulips had been in 17th-century Holland before the market crashed in 1637, or cigarettes, chocolate and stockings in Europe during the Second World War. Like currency, strawberries must have been precious. Giving any away was unthinkable. That kind of generosity was saved for small smears of cheap jam on bread.
The arrival of strawberry season is always a clarion call of better times ahead, a lovely melodic sound of a trumpet.
In the 75 years since those days, my fortunes have changed, mostly, though not always consistently, for the better. But the test has always dwelled in the fresh fruit bins of the local supermarket, more than the Dow Jones or the balance in my bank account. Being an economics graduate of the University of Cape Town, I learned about overcoming scarcity as a measure of wealth.
As my summer in North America approaches, even in this time of pandemic, I’m quite sure that I’m more prosperous than I was as a child. I look forward to the end of our lockdown, so I can invite friends over for lots of beautiful California strawberries in cream. I’ll invite my neighbors too, so I won’t have to draw the drapes.
I believe that nowadays gigantic amounts of strawberries are shipped around the world in refrigerated containers. I imagine them flying about. Surely the path to new great wealth is in strawberry futures. I must call my broker.
