“Almost Enough for Lunch by Itself”
Record-Breaking Strawberries in the GAPE
Happy May, and happy National Strawberry Month! For this issue of Missing Pieces, I’m delighted to take a closer look at America’s second favorite fruit. Unsurprisingly, I plan to look at strawberries via the lens of Theodore Roosevelt and see what he—and his contemporaries—thought about these red berries.
A quick search of the Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library reveals several mentions of strawberries in TR’s correspondence and other materials related to TR. My favorite is a photograph of his youngest son Quentin picking strawberries at Sagamore Hill.
Quentin Roosevelt in the strawberry patch. Prints and Photographs division. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
In other correspondence, TR mentions strawberries that he either picked or purchased from someone else—almost like the “you pick”/“we pick” options that exist today on many strawberry farms.
In an 1869 letter to his future wife Edith Kermit Carow, a ten-year-old TR talks about visiting England and meeting “two boys with strawberries” from whom he purchased three quarts of the berries.
Another entertaining document was TR’s 1898 receipt from the Metropolitan Club Restaurant, which he visited as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He ordered two pork chops, two orders of potatoes, two glasses of milk, one beer—and four orders of strawberries. The strawberries cost as much as the two pork chops—$1.20, or almost $44 today!
Theodore Roosevelt's Receipt from the Metropolitan Club Restaurant. Theodore Roosevelt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
The rest of the material pertaining to strawberries didn’t seem as interesting as these two records—or so I thought until I came across an unassuming 1906 letter from TR to a man named Arthur T. Goldsborough in which TR wrote:
“Indeed that strawberry was almost enough for lunch by itself, and I can give it no higher praise than to say that it was as delicious as your strawberries always are.”
I immediately wanted to know the identity of this Mr. Goldsborough! Was he merely a TR fan who sent goods to the president? There are many letters in the Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library from adoring citizens who sent President Roosevelt goods like maple syrup, a possum, and mint cordial. Or was Goldsborough an established strawberry farmer?
It turns out that the latter was correct. Arthur T. Goldsborough was a nationally—and internationally—recognized strawberry farmer of the early 1900s based in Washington, DC. And not only did he grow strawberries but also he cultivated big strawberries.
In fact, Goldsborough was awarded the silver medal during the 1904 St. Louis Exhibition for six of his strawberries, which weighed on average of just over three ounces each. The rest of the competition’s strawberries averaged about two ounces each. One long-time horticulturist William Saunders said, “They were the largest berries I have seen. They looked at first sight liked tomatoes.”
Amazingly, Goldsborough’s largest berry weighed four ounces and was 10.5 inches in circumference when a one-ounce berry—in other words, an extra-large strawberry over an inch-and-a-half in diameter—was not common.
An Evening Star article reported that while a four-ounce strawberry had been recorded in England, the average weight of Goldsborough’s six berries had never been achieved before. These were record-breaking berries!
The next year in 1905, Goldsborough broke his—and the world’s—record with a strawberry that was 4.75 ounces. As The Fruit-Grower newspaper reported in 1907, “This berry was of the flattish round shape so often assumed by large berries, and, lying flat on a man’s hand, covered it from the swell at the base of the thumb to the balls of the finger tips.”
Because we don’t have Goldsborough’s letter when he sent TR the strawberry in 1906, we don’t know what size berry Goldsborough sent the president. I have a feeling, though, that it was a big berry since TR said it was almost enough for lunch by itself.
Today’s current world record for a strawberry has far exceeded Goldsborough’s record in 1905: 10.19 ounces, set in 2022 by Israeli farmer Ariel Chahi. To provide some perspective, Chahi’s berry weighs more than an iPhone XR. Now that’s definitely a berry that is enough for lunch by itself!
To celebrate National Strawberry Month, I’d encourage you to visit a local strawberry patch and look for your own record-breaking berries (or buy them pre-picked, depending on your preference). Whether you find a cell phone sized berry or not, I do hope you find plenty of berries that are just as delicious as Goldsborough’s berries were to TR!
Strawberry picking at my local patch, Bear Ridge Farms
I can see why Strawberries are popular, they are great by themselves or combined with other foods. My grandma loved to have strawberries with angel food cake.