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berries sit in standing water.

UNDERSTANDING FREEZING: Here is an interesting quote from a site devoted to debunking cryonics (the freezing of human bodies in the hopes of finding cures and then being thawed and brought back to the land of the living). "During freezing, the water within each cell expands, crystallizes, and ruptures the cell membranes. When defrosted, all the intracellular goo oozes out, turning your strawberries into runny mush. This is your brain on cryonics." So now you know that freezing damages cells, but the speed at which your fruit is brought down to the freezing point is important. The faster the freeze the less damage to the cells and the more nicely your berries will thaw.

THIS WAY OR THAT WAY? There are two different approaches to freezing strawberries: dry or water packed. Dry is just that nice clean berries, left whole and then frozen. Water packed berries can be whole or sliced but (depending upon whose recipe you swipe) you add 1 cup of sugar to every 5 cups of strawberries. After mixing the sugar with the berries you can go directly to the freezer or pour water into your container and then freeze.

HOW TO SHORTEN YOUR FREEZING TIME:

1. Make sure your freezer is as cold as you can get it.
2. Avoid repeatedly opening the door. With good planning, once should do it
3. Large quantities will slow freezing times. Keep your batches to a
reasonable size so your freezer can cool them as fast as possible.
4. If you freeze your berries on a flat pan (not stacked on top of each
other), they will have more surface area exposed to the cold air, thus
allowing for a quicker freeze.

SERVING YOUR SUMMER BOUNTY: When fully thawed your berries will not be as firm as they were when freshly picked. To help in the presentation of the fruit, serving it while still just a tiny bit frozen (a few ice crystals here or there) will add firmness to the berry. When making strawberry shortcake in the middle of December, fruit that is not completely firm will do no harm to your winter delight. A slightly soft berry will not hurt your Jell-O or your fruit salad etiher!

Here is a site that has a plethora of information about freezing all types of fruit.
REFERENCES: http://extension.missouri.edu/ explore/hesguide/foodnut/gh150 2.htm

Here is the book I reach for when looking for questions about freezing: The Freezer Cookbook by Charlotte Ericson written in 1968, the ISBN is 0801952212. I took a quick peek on abebooks.com and the price was around $6.00.

Learn more about this author, Pam Hilts.
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