Strawberries are loaded with natural sugars, but these rapidly convert to starch once the berry is picked. So it's not your imagination that a freshly picked strawberry tastes better.

If we held a fruit popularity contest, how many of you would vote for the strawberry? Probably everyone. Especially you Californians. Even though there are some crops planted in Florida, the Northeast, and around the Great Lakes, but the majority of our red delicious friends come from — you guessed it, California.

California’s moderate temperatures and good balance of sunshine and rainfall make it perfectly suited to grow strawberries eleven months out of the year. And in the case of the strawberry, weather equals flavor.

See, the moment a strawberry is cut off from the mother ship, its ripening process grinds to a halt. That’s why what happens to it while it’s still on the plant is so important.

I’ve heard it said that there are 59 different chemicals in "artificial" strawberry flavoring, as if that’s a lot. Well, a single real strawberry contains about 350 different flavor compounds. That makes it a flavor factory, but remember, all that wizardry happens while the berry is basking in the sun.

So make sure that the strawberries you buy are fully ripe. Look for bright red fruit with leafy green caps, firm flesh, but most of all, use your nose. At least 100 of the different flavor compounds created by ripening are detected by your proboscis.However you store your berries, don’t wash them until right before you eat them, because wet strawberries are much more likely to grow mold, even in your fridge. And that would be "berry" bad.Explore: Cooking with strawberries

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