Pineberries, or, Unripened Strawberries

The other day at the grocery store, a clear plastic clam-shell in the berry section caught my attention. It was labeled "Pineberries", but they looked like this:

Unripened berries, and unripened fruit in general, are not deal breakers for me, as far as sampling is concerned, but while these here berries look like unripened strawberries, they cost eight or nine bucks.

They were tasty, with a flavor profile different from strawberries proper, but maybe not as close,in my opinion, to the pineapple, which is how they derived the name.

Then I started looking at cultivars of strawberries, and went down a rabbit hole. But, good news, that was a few weeks ago and I've forgotten most of it. In general, "musk strawberries" may be the oldest version of the strawberry as a human cultivated endeavor. They tend to be smaller and darker than what we buy today. Later the "alpine strawberry" became the cultivar of choice, and it remains popular in small villages in rural Europe. 

The alpine led to today's most sold and cultivated cultivar, the "garden strawberry." Pineberris followed, and eventually an array of colorful entries were developed. Those might just be colored versions of the garden strawberry, a bit of a novelty.

Anyway, here is a cool picture I lifted from the Internet:

Starting in the upper left with the dark berries, and then moving clockwise around the plate, we have musk, garden, alpine, and pine.

This missive will get lost to time...I think I planned on it to be a spiritual cousin to the Brassica oleracea piece. 

Anyway: they were worth the eight or nine bucks.