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Eating and Drinking Poems: May Swenson’s “Strawberrying”

By Kathryn Neel

In these last days before fall sets in, Kathryn Neel’s latest Eating and Drinking Poems post invites us to recall lazy summer days of childhood by tempting us with cool, homemade strawberry ice cream.

Summer is coming to an end. Soon we will be trading in shorts for sweaters, beach towels for school books or briefcases, and sunny, hot days for more temperate weather. So, in honor of the last days of summer, I share with you an old family recipe for strawberry ice cream to go with May Swenson’s poem, “Strawberrying.”

Try remembering what it was like as a child to eat fresh, homemade ice cream and to lie in the grass staring at lightning bugs or the stars, feeling all was right with the world.

Strawberrying

My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head
drops on the heap in the basket. Or, ripe
to bursting, they might be hearts, matching
the blackbirds’s wing-fleck. Gripped to a reed
he shrieks his ko-ka-ree in the next field.
He’s left his peck in some juicy cheeks, when
at first blush and mostly white, they showed
streaks of sweetness to the marauder.

We’re picking near the shore, the morning
sunny, a slight wind moving rough-veined leaves
our hands rumple among. Fingers find by feel
the ready fruit in clusters. Here and there,
their squishy wounds….Flesh was perfect
yesterday….June was for gorging….
sweet hearts young and firm before decay.

“Take only the biggest and not too ripe, ”
a mother calls to her girl and boy, barefoot
in the furrows. “Don’t step on any. Don’t
change rows. Don’t eat too many.” Mesmerized
by the largesse, the children squat and pull
and pick handfuls of rich scarlets, half
for the baskets, half for avid mouths.
Soon, whole faces are stained.

A crop this big begs for plunder. Ripeness
wants to be ravished, as udders of cow when hard,
the blue-veined bags distended, ache to be stripped.
Hunkered in mud between the rows, sun burning
the backs of our necks, we grope for, and rip loose
soft nippled heads. If they bleed—too soft—
let them stay. Let them rot in the heat.

When, hidden away in a damp hollow under moldy
leaves, I come upon a clump of heart-shapes
once red, now spiderspit-gray, intact but empty,
still attached to their dead stems—
families smothered as at Pompeii—I rise
and stretch. I eat one more big ripe lopped
head. Red-handed, I leave the field.

Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup Milk
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup heavy cream
3 cups fresh, ripe strawberries, washed, topped and hulled
1/4 to 1/2 cup granulated sugar (for sweetening the berries)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Heat the milk in a medium sized nonreactive sauce pan, to just below boiling. Put the egg yolks in a small mixing bowl and whisk in the ½ cup sugar to blend. Slowly whisk the hot milk into the egg and sugar mixture to temper the egg yolks. Pour the hot milk-and-egg mixture back into the sauce pan and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the air bubbles that cover the surface have dissipated and the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon thickly. Do not ever allow the custard to simmer or boil. Remove from heat, and stir in heavy cream. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, and allow to cool completely.
Put the strawberries in a bowl, and sprinkle ¼ cup granulated sugar over them. Using two forks or a potato masher, crush the strawberries to a pulp. Taste the mixture and add more sugar if needed. The berries should be quite sweet but not cloying.
Stir the sugared and mashed berries into the cooled custard. Add the vanilla and salt, and stir well to blend. Chill until very cold, preferably overnight. Freeze in an ice-cream freezer, following manufacturer’s instructions.

Recipe Notes

Note: If strawberries are in short supply where you live, try some other fruit (bananas, peaches, berries, etc.)

Photo by Mr.TinDC,  Creative Commons via Flickr. Post by Kathryn Neel.

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Kathryn Neel
Kathryn Neel
Kathryn Neel used to travel the world for her tech job, and she visited restaurants, bakeries, and chocolate makers along the way. She learned a great deal about making chocolate and eventually founded Sappho Chocolates. She is also a Florida Coastal Naturalist at Canaveral National Seashore.
Kathryn Neel
Latest posts by Kathryn Neel (see all)
  • Eating and Drinking Poems: WendellBerry’s “Fall” - October 24, 2014
  • Eating & Drinking Poems: Dorianne Laux’s “A Short History of the Apple” - September 12, 2014
  • Eating and Drinking Poems: May Swenson’s “Strawberrying” - August 8, 2014

Filed Under: Eating and Drinking Poems, Food Poems, Nature Poems, Summer Poems

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About Kathryn Neel

Kathryn Neel used to travel the world for her tech job, and she visited restaurants, bakeries, and chocolate makers along the way. She learned a great deal about making chocolate and eventually founded Sappho Chocolates. She is also a Florida Coastal Naturalist at Canaveral National Seashore.

Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    August 8, 2014 at 10:36 am

    Please do include Swenson’s poem or a link. I love the opening line “My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head /….”

    My parents used to have an old hand-crank ice cream making machine that was in use throughout the summer. It took a lot of labor and no time to reduce to nothing the marvelous results.

    • Maureen Doallas says

      August 8, 2014 at 10:46 am

      I see the poem is included, just run in with text.

  2. SimplyDarlene says

    August 8, 2014 at 1:10 pm

    freeze summer
    little
    bits
    of a time –
    strawberry
    peach
    nectarine
    plum
    tomato

    loll summer
    on
    your tongue –
    cobbler
    jam
    pie

    remember her
    plump
    ripe
    heat
    as
    it snows

  3. Marcy says

    August 8, 2014 at 8:11 pm

    Strawberry Summers

    The color of red,
    Sweet, pop in your mouth
    But turn your head.
    Little girl dressed,
    In a cotton gown.
    Barefooted
    Her slippers forgotten,
    Her feet all brown.
    She smells of blueberry mornings,
    With a crown of morning glories
    In her soft pale hair.
    Takes up her tiny basket,
    Full of juicy red.
    Walks the trail of,
    Mashed down grass.
    To her home,
    Of the past.

    • Marcy says

      August 19, 2014 at 10:09 pm

      I would like to throw this one out also. August 8, 2014 I rewrote it also.

      Strawberry Summers

      The color of red,
      Little girl dressed in a cotton gown.
      Barefooted, her feet all brown.
      Takes her tiny basket,
      Full of juicy red.
      Follows mashed down green,
      To the back door screen.

  4. Prasanta says

    August 10, 2014 at 1:55 am

    Eating homemade ice cream is most definitely a fond and vivid summer memory.
    And this poem by May Swenson is simply luscious. That first line is arresting.
    I take my kids to pick berries every summer, and have actually said very similar words as the mom in the poem: “take only the biggest and not too ripe”. 🙂

  5. Marcy says

    August 10, 2014 at 11:54 pm

    Dew drops left,
    On strawberry red.
    Quiet is the field,
    Birds fly overhead.
    Large ones fall,
    Right into my hand.
    Firm, ripe, ready,
    To pick.
    Thoughts of chilled,
    Berries sugared and sweet.
    Take me home, they all say.
    So sweet.

  6. Monica Sharman says

    August 15, 2014 at 8:32 am

    Any ice cream recipe with 6 egg yolks and all cream (no milk) has got to be good. 🙂

  7. Linda Reid says

    August 19, 2014 at 6:16 pm

    Love all these poems about summer and strawberries. Takes me back to a place I like to be.

  8. Kathryn Neel says

    August 19, 2014 at 9:07 pm

    Glad you all are enjoying the strawberry ice cream poem as well as the recipe. The recipe was my grandmother’s.

  9. Marcy says

    August 19, 2014 at 10:01 pm

    You can remove the poem I wrote on August 10th, 2014 at 11:54 p.m. I’ve rewrote it.

    “Strawberry Red”

    Dew drops left on strawberry red,
    Quiet is the field ahead
    Large ones fall, firm, ripe to pick.
    Thoughts of chilled berries,
    Sugared and sweet.

  10. tom says

    September 26, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    I think you have misread this poem.

Trackbacks

  1. Eating and Drinking Poems: May Swenson's "... says:
    August 8, 2014 at 11:25 am

    […] In honor of the last days of summer, Kathryn Neel shares an old family recipe for strawberry ice cream to go with May Swenson’s poem, “Strawberrying.”  […]

  2. #NationalPoetryMonth Round-up (Day 3) | Bonespark~ says:
    April 20, 2015 at 4:24 pm

    […] Musset| “Eggs” May Swenson| “Strawberrying” Shangrilla Willy| “Hunger” (with sound) Alisha Erin Hillam| “If I Had Twitter in […]

  3. 50 States of Generosity: Utah - Tweetspeak Poetry says:
    January 21, 2022 at 5:01 am

    […] Yes, Virginia, the desert can be beautiful Steven L. Peck, biologist, environmentalist, poet May Swenson, poet Temple Square, Salt Lake […]

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