Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
Speaker 1: Tracy, have you noticed that strawberries are kind of having
Speaker 1: a moment.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest, I haven't, just because I'm not
Speaker 2: aware of anything happening fashionably.
Speaker 1: Do you know what it is? It's also just that
Speaker 1: you're not a rabid consumer the way I am. Okay,
Speaker 1: Holly buys a lot of things she doesn't mean, but
Speaker 1: strawberries are. They're having a moment. If you look at
Speaker 1: clothing or home design goods that are out this year,
Speaker 1: strawberries are everywhere. I literally got an email promotion for
Speaker 1: like plush strawberry pillows. Oh my goodness. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: humans have been enjoying strawberries around the world for thousands
Speaker 1: of years, but as a cultivated plant, they're actually pretty new.
Speaker 1: The story of how they went from a small forage
Speaker 1: item to one of the world's most popular fruits. There
Speaker 1: is a technicality in there regarding that designation that we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about in just a moment, but that
Speaker 1: story involves a lot of crossbreeding experimentation as you would expect,
Speaker 1: but what I love about it is there's also a
Speaker 1: bit of spycraft. I didn't mean to pick another French thing.
Speaker 1: I really just wanted to learn more about strawberries because
Speaker 1: they were in my face everywhere. But that's what we're
Speaker 1: talking about today.
Speaker 2: Strawberries are actually part of the rose family, from the
Speaker 2: family rose a cia. If that seems surprising, the rose
Speaker 2: family is really quite massive. It contains four subfamilies, more
Speaker 2: than ninety genus categories, and roughly twenty five hundred species.
Speaker 1: A rose is.
Speaker 2: In the genus Rosa. We think of it as a flower,
Speaker 2: but rose are also a fruit. The Roseesia family also
Speaker 2: contains almonds, pears, and apples, lots of other fruits as well. Strawberries,
Speaker 2: which are rich and vitamin see, are in the genus Frigaria.
Speaker 2: So the seeds of the strawberry, if you've ever seen one,
Speaker 2: are of course on the outside, and that makes it
Speaker 2: unique in the fruit world. But it's actually not really
Speaker 2: a fruit or a berry at all. A strawberry, the
Speaker 2: thing we eat and what we think of as the strawberry,
Speaker 2: is actually the end of the plant's stamen, right it's
Speaker 2: the receptacle that receives pollen. So if you look at
Speaker 2: a strawberry flour, there's a nodule at the center, and
Speaker 2: that is the receptacle, and it's that nodule that eventually
Speaker 2: grows into the fleshy thing we eat, provided it's been pollinated.
Speaker 2: And the strawberry is sometimes called an accessory fruit because
Speaker 2: of this, and each of those seeds on the outside
Speaker 2: is the actual fruit, known as a chienes, although we
Speaker 2: wouldn't think of them fruit because they're not delicious. I mean,
Speaker 2: there might be someone that thinks strawberry seeds are delicious,
Speaker 2: but I've never met one. And an average strawberry has
Speaker 2: as many as two hundred of these not really seeds
Speaker 2: on its skin, and those can be used to grow
Speaker 2: new plants, but the more common way for new plants
Speaker 2: to form is actually through runners. So a healthy plant
Speaker 2: will send out shoots called stolens, and those who will
Speaker 2: root when they touch the ground, and then a new
Speaker 2: plant will grow there. Strawberries have not been cultivated in
Speaker 2: the sense that we know them now for really all
Speaker 2: that long, only about two hundred and fifty years, but
Speaker 2: of course they've been around for a lot longer than that.
Speaker 2: If you've ever seen strawberries growing in the wild, or
Speaker 2: even if you've grown some from seed, those were probably
Speaker 2: a lot smaller than the ones you might buy at
Speaker 2: a grocery store. And that's what strawberries are like without
Speaker 2: human intervention in breeding and cultivation. But even before humans
Speaker 2: knew how to grow big, juicy strawberries, they really loved them.
Speaker 2: Horticultural biologist James F. Hancock notes in his book on Strawberries, quote,
Speaker 2: the ease with which strawberries can be collected from the
Speaker 2: wild may actually have delayed their cultivation until almost modern times.
Speaker 2: Naturally occurring strawberries have been enjoyed in recorded history since
Speaker 2: at least ancient Rome, and probably longer, but that's the
Speaker 2: first time we have a record of them. It's estimated
Speaker 2: that people started domesticating strawberries, growing them on purpose but
Speaker 2: not messing with their genetics, about two thousand years ago,
Speaker 2: and that seems like a long time, but if you
Speaker 2: compare that to the domestication of grain, which started roughly
Speaker 2: ten thousand years ago, it's obviously not that long. And
Speaker 2: even so, these were in all likelihoods just clippings or
Speaker 2: transplants of the small, previously forged strawberries that we mentioned
Speaker 2: a moment ago, and again not the fat, juicy ones.
Speaker 2: Larger versions seen in markets today are the ones that
Speaker 2: we mentioned as being cultivated in the last two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty years, and we'll get to how those came
Speaker 2: about in just a bit. Avid mentioned strawberries in his writings,
Speaker 2: and so did Virgil, but these mentions were not about
Speaker 2: them as food, more about them as ornamentals and identifiers.
Speaker 2: For example, in Avid's Metamorphoses, strawberries come up twice, once
Speaker 2: in a line where he just mentions the gathering of
Speaker 2: mountain strawberries, and another where character of Polypemus says to
Speaker 2: his estranged lover quote, with thine own hands, thou shalt
Speaker 2: thyself gather the soft strawberries growing beneath the woodland shade.
Speaker 2: Pliny the Elder mentions the strawberry in Natural History as
Speaker 2: a plant native to Italy, but he also seems to
Speaker 2: confuse it with another plant with a similar name. In
Speaker 2: the same book, and in Virgil's work Eclogues, written in
Speaker 2: the first cent BCE, he notes the boys that gather
Speaker 2: flowers and strawberries low hid within the grass a serpent lies.
Speaker 2: It's a warning about snakes more than it's about the strawberry.
Speaker 2: The scant other mentions of strawberries and writing before the
Speaker 2: fourteenth century tended to be about the appearance of the
Speaker 2: berries or the flowers rather than their edible potential.
Speaker 1: And even once people did start eating them or consuming
Speaker 1: them in other ways, strawberries were just as likely to
Speaker 1: be consumed for health reasons as for having any kind
Speaker 1: of sweet fruit, and all parts of the plant have
Speaker 1: been used in various treatments. So there are mentions of
Speaker 1: strawberries being used to treat diarrhea, gout, indigestion, skin irritations, sunburn, pimples,
Speaker 1: and yellow teeth in various medical texts throughout history, and
Speaker 1: these uses have some solid scientific basis, although those early
Speaker 1: users of strawberries as medicine wouldn't have had the data
Speaker 1: we have today. To Turk heard to you right now,
Speaker 1: we know that strawberries are, as we mentioned earlier, loaded
Speaker 1: with vitamin C and also full like acid, antioxidants and potassium,
Speaker 1: as well as just being full of fiber.
Speaker 2: Where the name strawberry comes from is a matter of speculation,
Speaker 2: and the theory is very quite a lot One idea
Speaker 2: is that because they grow on the ground, they may
Speaker 2: have often been seen growing in straw. Another is that
Speaker 2: the berries might have been threaded on straw to be
Speaker 2: easy to carry and sell, or maybe that they were
Speaker 2: stored on beds of straw for transport to markets. Another,
Speaker 2: and one that maybe makes the most sense, is that
Speaker 2: they were first called strawberries because of the way that
Speaker 2: they grew strewn about the ground, or maybe because they
Speaker 2: ripened at the same time as hay did, and then
Speaker 2: that eventually the name shifted to a different vowel in
Speaker 2: the first syllable. I have seen the speculation that maybe
Speaker 2: those little seed like bits on the outside looked like
Speaker 2: straw dust to people, and that was maybe the source
Speaker 2: of it. But anyway, the first known use of the
Speaker 2: word strawberry comes from a pictorial vocabulary of the latter
Speaker 2: fifteenth century. In the fourteenth century, strawberries had become popular
Speaker 2: enough in France that the transition was made from foraging
Speaker 2: them to gardening them. This was a strawberry species that
Speaker 2: had been found in the woods fragaria vesca, which people
Speaker 2: started to purposely grow near their homes for easy access,
Speaker 2: Although they still were often sought out for their visual
Speaker 2: appeal and not necessarily for eating. There are also many
Speaker 2: instances of strawberries appearing in religious art in Europe in
Speaker 2: its early years of cultivation. Strawberries appear in imagery throughout
Speaker 2: the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, often symbolizing righteousness. In thirteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight, strawberries were included in the gardens of the
Speaker 2: At this time it was still the main palace of
Speaker 2: the King of France, who is Charles the Fifth, and
Speaker 2: at the King's request, royal gardener Jean Dudoit incorporated twelve
Speaker 2: hundred strawberries into the garden's design. I bet that was
Speaker 2: so pretty, yeap. By the fourteen hundred, strawberries were being
Speaker 2: sold by street vendors in London, and by the fifteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: another species Fugaria muscata, also known as the musk strawberry,
Speaker 2: had made its way into gardens as well. Strawberries were
Speaker 2: grown in other European countries in addition to England and France.
Speaker 2: Shakespeare's Richard the Third includes a mention of strawberries by
Speaker 2: the Duke of Gloucester, who described seeing them in the
Speaker 2: garden of the Bishop of Ely and asks that the
Speaker 2: Bishop sent him some. By the time Shakespeare wrote that
Speaker 2: play in fifteen ninety seven, strawberries had been extremely popular
Speaker 2: in England for decades. King Henry the eighth was a
Speaker 2: big fan. They were described does a medicinal remedy in
Speaker 2: the fifteen twenty sixth book The Great herbal and were
Speaker 2: discussed at length in a fifteen thirty sixth book, The
Speaker 2: Natcheri Usturpium Libri, which was written by a botanist named Druelius.
Speaker 2: The strawberry had also been classified as a plant that
Speaker 2: was appropriate for women to cultivate in the fifteen fifty
Speaker 2: seven book Five hundred Points of Good Husbandry. By that
Speaker 2: point there was a clear division in writings between strawberries
Speaker 2: that were purposely grown versus strawberries that were naturally occurring,
Speaker 2: and France had continued to embrace the strawberry into the
Speaker 2: sixteenth century. Henry the fourth of France's personal physician wrote
Speaker 2: about them in the fifteen sixties. Their cultivation was described
Speaker 2: in detail in the fifteen seventy eight writing Le Criculture
Speaker 2: re Maison rustique, written by Jean le Beau and Charles Etienne,
Speaker 2: and in this book that duo recommended that fields should
Speaker 2: be planted with rawberries every third year as a way
Speaker 2: to keep them fertile. Across the Atlantic, North America had
Speaker 2: its own native strawberry, the Fragaria virginiana or Virginia strawberry.
Speaker 2: Sometime in the seventeenth century, the Virginia strawberry made its
Speaker 2: way to Europe. How that happened exactly is a little unclear,
Speaker 2: but as Europe already loved strawberries, this new variety was
Speaker 2: embraced and it started to be actively cultivated and crossed
Speaker 2: with others, creating more than two dozen new species, but
Speaker 2: these were still in terms of the fruit on the
Speaker 2: small side.
Speaker 1: In seventeen fourteen, something happened that changed the strawberry forever.
Speaker 1: The short version is that a native Chilean species known
Speaker 1: as Fragaria chiloensis made its way to Europe. But the
Speaker 1: story is much more interesting than that, and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about it after we pause for a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: Fragaria chili insis is naturally a bit larger than the
Speaker 1: strawberries that Europeans and North Americans were accustomed to in
Speaker 1: the early eighteenth century. It was more than likely cultivated
Speaker 1: by the mapuch and Huilich people for centuries before Europeans
Speaker 1: ever knew about it. When conquistador Francisco Pizarro's forces conquered
Speaker 1: Chile in the mid sixteenth century, they took some of
Speaker 1: these strawberries with them to Cuzco, Peru. There the fruit
Speaker 1: was written about by Garcelazzo de la Vega. His description
Speaker 1: was of a heart shaped fruit that had seeds on
Speaker 1: the outside. Although it's clear that's talking about a strawberry.
Speaker 1: He called it by a name that we associate with
Speaker 1: something very different. He called it the Chile. Other Europeans
Speaker 1: who traveled to Chile also made note of this fruit,
Speaker 1: comparing it to its European counterparts, but all was mentioning it,
Speaker 1: mentioning that it had better flavor and was larger, some
Speaker 1: comparing them to the size of large nuts. These Chilean
Speaker 1: strawberries are described as being different colors in different people's accounts,
Speaker 1: ranging from red to white, with basically every gradation in between.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, no one writing these descriptions ever
Speaker 1: thought to bring one back to Europe.
Speaker 2: These accounts, and particularly won by French priest Louis Foyer,
Speaker 2: got the attention of France's King Louis the fourteenth. He
Speaker 2: wanted to know more about this delicious berry, so he
Speaker 2: found an engineer who could be sent to the Americas
Speaker 2: to assess the forces of the Spanish colonies there. Louis
Speaker 2: the fourteenths grandson, the Duke of Anjous, had become King
Speaker 2: Philip the Fifth of Spain following the War of Spanish Succession,
Speaker 2: so this spy work was more about making sure things
Speaker 2: were good and that Louis the Fourteenth's financial and political
Speaker 2: backing of Philip the Fifth were worthwhile, as well as
Speaker 2: ensuring that France understood the situation completely in case everything
Speaker 2: went sideways on the global stage. So even though Spain
Speaker 2: and France were allies at this time, this was still
Speaker 2: a secret mission. But the selected spy was also tasked
Speaker 2: with collecting information and samples of the plant life of
Speaker 2: South America. Depending on the source you read, was possibly
Speaker 2: also keeping an eye out for the amazing strawberry that
Speaker 2: Fuia and others had written about. Yes, there's not a
Speaker 2: clear line of evidence that says that that it was
Speaker 2: a straw was like, go get me some strawberries, but
Speaker 2: it does seem like he was very intrigued by them,
Speaker 2: and this person certainly does get some That spy that
Speaker 2: we're talking about was a thirty two year old lieutenant
Speaker 2: colonel named Amade Flansois Flesier. Flesier was born in sixteen
Speaker 2: two in Chamberry, Savoy, which is in the eastern part
Speaker 2: of France. It's about three hundred kilometers from the Swiss border. Initially,
Speaker 2: the path that Amade Francois was expected to follow in
Speaker 2: terms of education was one that was going to lead
Speaker 2: him to the legal profession, which is what his father did.
Speaker 2: But Fresier was not interested in the law. He was
Speaker 2: interested in science, and he managed to convince his father
Speaker 2: that he should go to Paris to study that instead
Speaker 2: of law. In his studies, he focused on navigation and astronomy,
Speaker 2: and he wrote his thesis on the relationship.
Speaker 1: Between the two. And when he had completed his education
Speaker 1: in Paris, he then spent time in Italy, where he
Speaker 1: also indulged his interest in architecture and art and studied
Speaker 1: those disciplines during his time there, but he didn't immediately
Speaker 1: translate his education into a strictly scientific vocation. In seventeen hundred,
Speaker 1: at the age of eighteen, Fresier joined the military, enlisting
Speaker 1: with the Army of France, but he still did keep
Speaker 1: his scientific work going, really for no other reason than
Speaker 1: to occupy himself. He had a lot of free time
Speaker 1: in the infantry. He wrote a paper on pyrotechnics, including
Speaker 1: instructions on the manufacture of fireworks. But this did actually
Speaker 1: advance his military career, as did mention the possible uses
Speaker 1: of fireworks by the military. So this landed him a
Speaker 1: position as a military engineer. That position was part of
Speaker 1: the intelligence branch, and that's how he came to be
Speaker 1: the man for the job that Louis the fourteenth had
Speaker 1: in mind. His varied knowledge of navigation, explosives, and science
Speaker 1: led to him being selected by his commanding officers as
Speaker 1: the man they recommended. He sailed out on January seventh,
Speaker 1: seventeen twelve, when Frasier boarded the ship the Saint Joseph
Speaker 1: headed for South America. He knew that he would be
Speaker 1: undercover as he completed this mission. He arrived in Concepts,
Speaker 1: Chile on June sixteenth, and he couldn't exactly hide, so
Speaker 1: instead he created an alternate backstory for himself and posed
Speaker 1: as a merchant trader. This persona made it possible for
Speaker 1: him to travel openly and to visit places under the
Speaker 1: guise of mere curiosity instead of performing reconnaissance. For two
Speaker 1: and a half years he toured Peru and Chile, feigning
Speaker 1: to be a merchant and a tourist, all the while
Speaker 1: documenting the fortifications of the Spanish military. He made detailed
Speaker 1: maps of the Spanish colonial forts, with detailed accounts of
Speaker 1: their artillery and their weak points where an attack might
Speaker 1: be mounted, as well as their potential roots of escape,
Speaker 1: and accompanying those maps and accounts, he included information about
Speaker 1: the surrounding areas, such as the indigenous populations, the municipal governments,
Speaker 1: religious practices of the locals, etc.
Speaker 2: These were cultivated strawberries in soil that Frazier described as
Speaker 2: quote extraordinarily fertile. He wrote of the location, quote there
Speaker 2: they plant whole fields with a sort of strawberry rushes
Speaker 2: differing from ours, and that the leaves are rounder, thicker,
Speaker 2: and more downy. The fruit is generally as big as
Speaker 2: a walnut, and sometimes as a hen's egg, of a
Speaker 2: whitish red, and somewhat less delicious of taste than our
Speaker 2: wood strawberries. Besides these, there is plenty in the woods
Speaker 2: of our European kind. Frasier also noted in the description
Speaker 2: that he had collected some of these plants for the
Speaker 2: King's garden. He also included a life size drawing of
Speaker 2: the strawberries. He described this drawing showed them full of fruit,
Speaker 2: but not showing the plant's flowers. When Frasier returned to
Speaker 2: France on August seventeenth, seventeen fourteen, he carried with him
Speaker 2: five of the strawberry plants which he had cared for
Speaker 2: on the voyage back across the Atlantic. This was no
Speaker 2: small feet. Listen, if you've ever transported plants, you know
Speaker 2: there are dangers, and in addition to all of the
Speaker 2: jostling that a plant might meet at sea, water was
Speaker 2: rationed on this trip, so prioritizing the plant's need for
Speaker 2: it had required careful calculation in some assistance from a
Speaker 2: crew member who will mention in just a moment. Fresier
Speaker 2: was honored by Louis the fourteenth for this work, with
Speaker 2: a cash reward for the many maps he returned with
Speaker 2: and of course those strawberries. Amedi Fresier wrote a book
Speaker 2: about his travels titled Account of the Voyage from the
Speaker 2: South Sea to the coasts of Chile, Peru, and Brazil,
Speaker 2: made during the years seventeen twelve, seventeen thirteen, and seventeen fourteen.
Speaker 2: Louis the fourteenth did not live long enough to see
Speaker 2: this published. He died on September first, seventeen fifteen, which
Speaker 2: was the year before it was finished, so he really
Speaker 2: didn't get to see the full results of the spy
Speaker 2: mission or the fruit that came from it. A lot
Speaker 2: of people got to read about it, though, because Frasier's book,
Speaker 2: which corrected a number of map errors made by his
Speaker 2: predecessor Lui Flier, and caused an ongoing feud between those
Speaker 2: two men that was translated into English, Dutch, and German.
Speaker 2: Monica Barnes, writing for the American Museum of Natural History
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight, noted of this popular text quote,
Speaker 2: most of the information in Frasier's text is superficial, obviously biased,
Speaker 2: and available from other sources. However, during the second and
Speaker 2: third decades of the eighteenth century, there was little information
Speaker 2: on western South America available to readers outside the Spanish
Speaker 2: speaking world. To a certain extent, Frasier filled that gap.
Speaker 2: The great strength of his work lies not in its narrative,
Speaker 2: but in its many excellent illustrations.
Speaker 1: The illustrations are very good. So of those five plants
Speaker 1: that we mentioned that he brought back, only one of
Speaker 1: them actually went to the king, or more specifically, to
Speaker 1: the King's gardener in Paris, Antoine de Jusieux. Remember, strawberries
Speaker 1: readily reproduce and spread through runners, so that one plant
Speaker 1: led to many, and in addition to the King's plant,
Speaker 1: Fresier kept one for himself, he gave one to his boss,
Speaker 1: Monsieur Pelletier, and he gave two to a Monsieur Rux,
Speaker 1: who had been in charge of cargo on the voyage
Speaker 1: to France and who had been very key to making
Speaker 1: sure the plants got water. But though all of these
Speaker 1: plants produced new plants through runners, what they weren't producing
Speaker 1: was fruit, because, as it turned out, the Chilean strawberry
Speaker 1: was a species that has male plants and female plants,
Speaker 1: as many strawberries are, and you need both of those
Speaker 1: to achieve pollination and produce fruit.
Speaker 2: It's long been presumed that Fresier, and wanting to bring
Speaker 2: the best plants back to France, naturally selected ones that
Speaker 2: bore large fruit that meant they were all female. Although
Speaker 2: Jesu had shared the runners of the King's plant with
Speaker 2: other gardeners both in France and abroad, they just couldn't
Speaker 2: get them to produce any fruit, except occasionally very small, misshapen,
Speaker 2: and incomplete ones. There were a lot of studies made
Speaker 2: of the plants, with details about their large flowers and
Speaker 2: stout leaves, and all of this was recorded and analyzed,
Speaker 2: but there was just no fruit. One Dutch botanist called
Speaker 2: it the Chili strawberry without blooms or fruits in his notes.
Speaker 2: They were taken to gardeners in England who tried to
Speaker 2: solve the puzzle. Some experimenters got really good at producing large,
Speaker 2: healthy blooms, but that was all the success they could
Speaker 2: really achieve. By the seventeen forties, a lot of gardeners
Speaker 2: had grown tired of trying to get something out of
Speaker 2: the Chilean plants, and in England they had fallen out
Speaker 2: of favor.
Speaker 1: But the strawberry was not abandoned by every hopeful horticulturist.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the breakthrough that offered some hope for
Speaker 1: the almost mythical berries that Fresier had touted. After we
Speaker 1: paused for a sponsor break. In France, some gardeners were
Speaker 1: managing to produce fruit from Fresier's plants, although not very many.
Speaker 1: There are notes of a Monsieur Denuete Greux, who reported
Speaker 1: that he had managed to get some very large berries,
Speaker 1: some with a circumference of seven point five inches, by
Speaker 1: crossing the Chilean plant with quote pollens from native berries.
Speaker 1: Fifty years after Fresier's plants arrived in Europe, someone produced
Speaker 1: large fruit from a Chilean strawberry and presented a bowl
Speaker 1: of that fruit to King Louis the fifteenth on July sixth,
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty four. That person was a teenager. He was
Speaker 1: just seventeen, and his name was Antoine Kolas Dushane, and
Speaker 1: he got his strawberries by crossing the Chilean strawberries with
Speaker 1: musk strawberries. Dushane, who was in line to inherit the
Speaker 1: job of superintendent of the King's buildings from his father,
Speaker 1: had learned a great deal about botany from the younger
Speaker 1: brother of the King's Paris gardener. That brother's name was
Speaker 1: Bernard de Jasieux, and Dushane was building on the work
Speaker 1: of other gardeners and botanists, and because of this gift
Speaker 1: to the King, he was given funding from the King
Speaker 1: to continue this work, and he used that funding to
Speaker 1: produce what would become a foundational text on strawberry cultivation.
Speaker 1: He also, at the King's request, collected specimens of all
Speaker 1: the known species of strawberry to be part of the
Speaker 1: gardens at Versailles.
Speaker 2: His revelation regarding the sex of the plants had come
Speaker 2: on May twenty ninth, seventeen sixty four, when he had
Speaker 2: a Fragaria chiluensis sent to him from the Versailles garden.
Speaker 2: It had already bloomed and no berries were growing on it,
Speaker 2: and he was able to see that these flowers were
Speaker 2: female without any male Chilean plants. He placed it near
Speaker 2: a male musk strawberry, which he had noticed had some
Speaker 2: similarities to the Chilean import and by June sixth, just
Speaker 2: a week later, one of the receptacles had started to swell.
Speaker 2: It had been pollinated. This was the experiment that led
Speaker 2: to the berries that he presented to the King. Figuring
Speaker 2: out the key to consistent strawberries and their fertility did
Speaker 2: not happen instantly, though. Those beautiful berries that the seventeen
Speaker 2: year old Dushane brought to Versailles had not been able
Speaker 2: to reproduce. They didn't produce viable seeds.
Speaker 1: Dushane dedicated himself to learning basically everything known about the
Speaker 1: strawberry and all of its varieties, as he also experimented
Speaker 1: with different iterations of cross pollination. He also consulted with
Speaker 1: well known scientists, including Linnaeus as he worked through his experiments,
Speaker 1: both for advice and kind of as a sort of
Speaker 1: peer review of his observations. But even Linnaeus was unconvinced
Speaker 1: of this idea of separate male and female plants, and
Speaker 1: he thought that perhaps Dushane had been observing strawberries that
Speaker 1: were frostbitten or damaged in some other way. When Duchane
Speaker 1: wrote his book about his work, he noted, quote no
Speaker 1: one I believe suspected before me the separations of the
Speaker 1: sexes in the capiton. And through working with his own
Speaker 1: experiments and the information he collected from other horticulturists, he
Speaker 1: was able to figure out that the greatest success in
Speaker 1: cross pollination happened when the female Chilean strawberries were combined
Speaker 1: with male Virginia strawberries. Large fruit was the consistent result,
Speaker 1: and that resulting fruit bore seeds, and those seeds produced
Speaker 1: plants that could self pollinate. He had created a new
Speaker 1: species of strawberry, which he called Fragaria ananasa. So ananasa
Speaker 1: is a reference to pineapples, because these resulting berries smelled
Speaker 1: to dushane like pineapple, and the Fragaria ananasa is the
Speaker 1: strawberry that we eat today.
Speaker 2: The success of the combination of the two North American
Speaker 2: strawberry species has led to the theory that these two
Speaker 2: species were possibly originally from the same species, likely one
Speaker 2: that originated in Asia, and that these two lines developed
Speaker 2: in the separate climates of Chile and then farther north
Speaker 2: in North America. If that's the case, the two plant
Speaker 2: species went on a huge journey before being finally brought
Speaker 2: back together in France. So if you speak French, you
Speaker 2: may have been thinking throughout all of this that because
Speaker 2: of this extended spy mission, the word fres which means strawberry,
Speaker 2: was applied to the beloved fruit as an honor to
Speaker 2: the man who brought the Chilean samples back to the
Speaker 2: French king. But in a hilarious twist, that is actually
Speaker 2: the opposite of what happened. Fresier's family already had an
Speaker 2: association with the strawberry going quite away's back, and the
Speaker 2: name Fresier had been gifted to them by a previous
Speaker 2: king of France. So this story goes all the way
Speaker 2: back to the tenth century, when one of amide Frasier's ancestors,
Speaker 2: Julius du Bery, which is hilarious that he was already
Speaker 2: called Berry, served King Charles the Third strawberries at the
Speaker 2: end of a banquet as a gift. Not only was
Speaker 2: the king delighted, but his Italian guest, Cardinal Clemens of
Speaker 2: Monte Alto, was bowled over and described these berries as
Speaker 2: superior to any that could be found in Italy. So
Speaker 2: in thanks for making France look very good with a
Speaker 2: foreign official, Charles the Third knighted Julius de Berry and
Speaker 2: bestowed the name fres Strawberry upon him, as well as
Speaker 2: giving the family coat of arms strawberry blossoms, and then
Speaker 2: over time Frez shifted to Fresier. So in terms of lore,
Speaker 2: it almost seems like Ami Day was destined to be
Speaker 2: Louis the fourteenth Strawberry Guy. As for Fresier's life, host
Speaker 2: strawberry retrieval. It was a full one. He went back
Speaker 2: across the Atlantic in seventeen nineteen, this time as chief
Speaker 2: engineer at Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic. He returned
Speaker 2: to Europe and oversaw the building of a reported twenty
Speaker 2: six defense structures. He got married and had a family,
Speaker 2: and he continued working, rising higher in his career until
Speaker 2: he finally retired at the age of eighty two. But
Speaker 2: he continued to write and read a great deal and
Speaker 2: died in seventeen seventy three at the age of ninety one,
Speaker 2: having been celebrated for a wide variety of achievements. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's one of those people that was pretty recognized as
Speaker 2: like an icon and a sage. It is t time
Speaker 2: he got to enjoy the benefit of his reputation while
Speaker 2: he was still alive. Antoine Nicola Dushane continued to experiment
Speaker 2: with strawberries and other plants and published a lot of
Speaker 2: books about his work. He was able, for example, to
Speaker 2: identify the optimal temperatures at which strawberries would produce, and
Speaker 2: eventually also developed a master diagram of the theoretical genealogical tree,
Speaker 2: which included all of the known types of strawberries and
Speaker 2: how he believed they developed from a single origin point.
Speaker 2: When the French Revolution of seventeen eighty nine erupted, Duchane
Speaker 2: lost his post, and because he was so connected to
Speaker 2: the royal family, he was in real danger of being guillotined.
Speaker 2: He did manage to ride out the conflict with his life, though,
Speaker 2: and he turned to teaching once things had settled down.
Speaker 2: But after that his life became sort of a series
Speaker 2: of bad money management, sorrow at the loss of his
Speaker 2: wife and daughter, ventually rapidly declining health. He died in
Speaker 2: eighteen twenty seven after a series of strokes, just shy
Speaker 2: of his eightieth Birthdayshane saw in his lifetime the benefit
Speaker 2: of his work in strawberry breeding. Before he died, many
Speaker 2: many gardeners throughout Europe were implementing the information he had
Speaker 2: developed to produce big, juicy, self fertile strawberry crops. Dishes
Speaker 2: featuring strawberries became luxury items, with strawberries and cream being
Speaker 2: especially popular. Doushane's legacy is still part of every supermarket
Speaker 2: strawberry we eat. The USDA estimates that ninety four percent
Speaker 2: of all US households consumed strawberries in some form each year,
Speaker 2: with each person eating an estimated four point eighty five
Speaker 2: pounds on average annually. The US produces three billion pounds
Speaker 2: of strawberries each year at a rate of about six
Speaker 2: thousand pounds per acre. By the early twenty teens, strawberries
Speaker 2: had become the third most important fruit crop for the
Speaker 2: US economy, following grapes and oranges.
Speaker 1: And all because of Duchane and fresier.
Speaker 2: Do you have some listener mail for us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I surely do. This is from our listener Katie,
Speaker 1: who writes, Hi, Holly and Tracy, I really enjoyed your
Speaker 1: recent episode on the children's morality code. My kid's elementary
Speaker 1: school has used a program called Character Strong for the
Speaker 1: last several years. I saw some of the lessons when
Speaker 1: school was over zoom. I definitely saw some echoes of
Speaker 1: this old morality code in them. There was one that
Speaker 1: was about determination, if I remember correctly, That featured a
Speaker 1: video celebrating a disabled girl running along race even though
Speaker 1: she was unable to walk. Afterwards, being reminded of the
Speaker 1: program made me curious, so I checked out their website.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have many particulars about the program, but it
Speaker 1: does have this in the description quote explicit direct skill
Speaker 1: instruction designed to lead to three powerful outcomes. Be strong,
Speaker 1: be kind, be well. Yikes, I've sent you all pictures
Speaker 1: of our pets before, so I thought i'd mix it
Speaker 1: up and send a recent quilting project. I'm still a novice,
Speaker 1: but I've made a lot of progress and an Abert's
Speaker 1: squirrel eating fallen bird seed. Thanks for all the work
Speaker 1: you do and throwing in some lighter episodes during all
Speaker 1: of this. You may be a novice, but this quilting
Speaker 1: is beautiful. It's a really beautiful kind of green and
Speaker 1: cream with accents of peach and pink florals on it.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely gorgeous. And I always love a squirrel picture.
Speaker 1: We have squirrel friends to visit our deck all the time.
Speaker 1: I just put out food for them too. We keep
Speaker 1: everybody fat and happy on our deck. But Katie, thanks
Speaker 1: for this. Terrifying to know that we're still doing that garbage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like we said in the behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: I totally get teaching kids about things like honesty.
Speaker 1: Yes, and like strength of character great. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: idea of like you have to push beyond your physical
Speaker 1: limits to a point that seems dangerous, where you are
Speaker 1: unable to function. That's not strength, that's that's dangerous.
Speaker 2: The idea of associating morals with being.
Speaker 1: Well, right, you'll be less disabled if you're stronger is
Speaker 1: messed up. Uh huh, super messed up. I hope somebody
Speaker 1: is reviewing that and realizing how woefully bad it is. Listen,
Speaker 1: teach kids to be kind, take care of themselves and
Speaker 1: one another. So good you don't you don't have to
Speaker 1: do any of the other moralizing about what it is
Speaker 1: to be a stronger. I hate all that. Yes, it
Speaker 1: gives me the ick.
Speaker 2: Really, I'm reminded of the person who sent us a
Speaker 2: letter whose two family rules were don't hit and hold
Speaker 2: hands in the parking lot, which they had as an
Speaker 2: adult sort of re envisioned as be kind to one
Speaker 2: another and look out for each other.
Speaker 1: That's very funny. You are reminding me of many moons ago.
Speaker 1: I used to manage a hair salon and one of
Speaker 1: our clients had two boys and they did the thing.
Speaker 1: I've heard of other families doing this, but this mom
Speaker 1: made these two boys do this in public ones and
Speaker 1: it tickled me. And I don't know if anyone would
Speaker 1: think it was terribly cruel, but they were fighting real bad, okay,
Speaker 1: in public, and so she had a giant shirt that
Speaker 1: she made them wear together.
Speaker 2: I think I've heard of this, the giant shirt story.
Speaker 1: She's not the only one. She stuck out to me
Speaker 1: because of some prominence in terms of being connected to
Speaker 1: a professional athlete. But you know, what was one of
Speaker 1: those things where it just I understand the logic of it.
Speaker 1: I'm not a parent. I don't know what works for
Speaker 1: any given family, but the logic, right is, of course,
Speaker 1: if you have to be in that close proximity, you
Speaker 1: cannot be physically fighting or you will just both fall down. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a whole restraint discussion to be had there, but
Speaker 1: I get it. Listen, the rules of how people teach
Speaker 1: kids are constantly changing. Yeah. In any case, Yeah, just
Speaker 1: be kind to one another, be kind of look out
Speaker 1: for each other. If you would like to write to
Speaker 1: us to tell us whether or not you had to
Speaker 1: share a shirt with a sibling when you fought, or
Speaker 1: anything else, you can do that at History Podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe to the podcast
Speaker 1: Easiest Pie on the iHeart Radio app, or anywhere you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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