Sour but Sweet

Strawberries are a luxury here. We don't have a lot of them, so when they are in season, each one is savored. Knowing this, I held my cup of strawberries very carefully, stabbed the top beautiful, red strawberry with my skewer, and popped it into my mouth. Instead of the expected burst of sweet strawberry juice, the berry was crunchy and sour. Then I remembered the woman who sold me the cup of berries tried to sprinkle a sugar/spicy/salty mixture on top of my cup of berries. I went back to her. She smiled and graciously gave my cup a sprinkling.

I explained to my Thai friends that as a kid in America I went to strawberry fields like this where they let us eat as many berries as we wanted while we picked bucketfuls to take home. My friends loved this idea.