Or the alleged ones, like the end of things themselves, whether it is called ‘death’ or ‘beginning of something new’. It was precisely in this space, wedged between more and nevermore, that - according to Greek and Roman mythology - strawberries were born. Jealous Mars had just killed Adonis, desperate Venus was crying all her tears. Then, precisely at the same time, strawberries started to be born from them. Inflorescences full of substances capable of bringing even to mortals each of the Goddess’ virtues: beauty, health, youth and love. Vitamin C and flavonoids do not lie: by means of them time appears less merciless in its passage and body more easily forgives us any gluttony sin. If all this were not enough, or if you wanted more from strawberries, as always expected from the others’ hearts, we can also count on them to preserve a vigilant mind and a lucid thought. Strawberries also forgive us for not being able to eat them as they are, often having to hide them under a more or less light layer of sucrose crystals - that «dear sugar needed to season them» - the lack of which, according to a tasty eighteenth century poem7, has caused this non-fruit to be poorly known to the ancient Romans with the exception of Ovid, who had them used by Polyphemus as a sweet promise to Galatea: «Tuis manibus mollia fraga leges8». Someone should have told them, that their lawns and gardens held one of the most powerful natural remedies for the heart. For the physical one, made of muscle fibres, as for the incorporeal one, made of intangible but alive and palpitating feelings. Much later Paracelsus came to say "Nothing comes without a signature, because Nature won’t leave nothing without signing what lies in it9": in strawberries lies the universal remedy for the heart. And in fact, at the time, strawberries were consumed either to appease heart passions in too ardent subjects, or to arouse them in the warmer ones. It was now discovered, in other ways, the connection between strawberries, passion and innocence that current science with its considerable means has done nothing but confirm. So let's start from innocence - because falling into guilt is quickly made, when passion gets involved. And let’s call into question William Shakespeare, supreme playwright as well as passions connoisseur, passionate about the only plant that, in his opinion, could avoid absorbing the good and the bad from the environment in which it lives: «The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, and wholesome berries thrive and ripen best neighboured by fruit of baser quality10». Even when, in The tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, an embroidered strawberry appears on the handkerchief that will cause the tragic epilogue of Moor's jealousy, Shakespeare is still declaring strawberry's innocence [and Desdemona’s one along with it]. It is in France, with Sun King and his ladies-in-waiting, that strawberries lose their innocence. To be precise during court banquets, when sinking the spoon in the cups sprinkled with sugar and cream was an unequivocal invitation to the chosen knight. Nevertheless, in these circumstances it seems to us that messenger doesn’t have to be shot and, in essence, we feel that strawberries could even get saved all by themselves: which desire would last in its ardour if we were to pay attention to that tiara of green leaflets tenderly crowning them like a halo? Doesn't it seem to you too that it absolves them completely, one by one, to the point of bringing them back into that free time zone in which memories of childhood float? It was there that even Ingmar Bergman and John Lennon placed them, by means of an Oscar-winning movie11 for the first and a legendary song12 for the second. In both cases, strawberries transform the place where their roots sink into a gateway to childhood time and its innocent desires. In strawberry fields, in the absence of past desires, one can still find ardour and daring for present and future ones. Knowing that, it seems legitimate, and indeed imperative, to imagine the strawberry as the moral icing on the cake of human existence. And now tell me, Gentlemen of the Jury: how could this possibly be a fault? 7 Giambattista Roberti di Bassano, Le fragole, 1752. 8 transl. «with your hands you’ll be able to grasp juicy strawberries» [Ovid, Metamorphoses - Liber XII, v. 815-816]. 9 Paracelsus, De natura rerum - Liber IX: De signatura rerum naturalium [III, 7, 131], 1537. 10 William Shakespeare, Henry V - act I scene I, 1599. 11 Ingmar Bergman, Wild Strawberries, 93’, 1957. 12 The Beatles, Strawberry fields forever, 1967. Guilty of being innocent. Resorting to a close relative of oxymoron, that is the verdict on strawberry, if you ever wanted to express the ambivalence of a fruit that is, at once, symbol of amorous passion and unbridled innocence. Certainly you either love it madly or hate it deeply. Strawberry is not a half-measures fruit, and in fairness it is not even a fruit. Shameless inflorescence of Fragaria, the real fruits of this plant are the achenes scattered on its pulp’s surface. It feels like we can hear it, as if it were an undergrowth matron: «Here are my jewels!». But when a wise man points at the moon, the imbecile examines the finger: it should shout louder about its bright pure carmine and its unashamedly heart-shaped form. A resemblance so striking that it was worth the consecration as the symbol of love. And therefore, of life originating from it. And therefore of all things, the beautiful and the bad, the easy and the uneasy. al nocciolo to the core 40 41
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