It calls attention to this TikTok of a young woman — whose family owns the luxury grocery store Erewhon — emoting over the consumption of an overpackaged, overpriced single strawberry:
Gross! That was a ripe target for parody:
March 17, 2025
"It's the $19 strawberry from Erewhon!"
I'm reading "I tried the viral $20 strawberry. It tasted like the end of the American empire/A single strawberry flown in from Japan is selling for $20 in a hip LA grocery store. Does it symbolize the worst of American excess, or is it simply delicious?" in The Guardian.
Posts
108 comments:
Haha…nice. As an unapologetic capitalist I kind of admire pushing the Veblen envelope in a soak the rich way. It reminds me of that The Apprentice- was it the one what just re-aired, where the guy was proposing the $100 glass of lemonade and got a nibble from someone…as a former strawberry farm laborer I conclude based only on the color of the berry’s interior this girl is a liar or has not eaten many strawberries in her wonderful life…
"Does it symbolize the worst of American excess..."?
***********
anyone who's been to Japan knows it's the frickin' Japanese who market ultra-high priced fruit, primarily to themselves.. Go lecture THEM about their "excess".
Groking what an Erewhon is I see they claim they began in a subterranean stall in Boston, long before my time…
We have just printed too much money. But people keep taking it as payment, so I guess it's not too much yet.
…I now expect a fulfilling two weeks of Erewhon Baader-Meinhof earworms…
You'd think it would be erehwon, especially because h is actually pronounced before w. Courtesy Gregg Shorthand.
You'd think it would be erehwon
I like to think that’s what they were going for and in an 1800s cannabis provoked moment misspelled it. Now that would be delicious!
…also: dystopian story reference- everybody drink!
…I think I’ve received $20 of pleasure just from this post…
Erewhon, huh? I thought that name was reserved for hippy communes containing seventeen cats, nine dogs, one dried-up Jersey cow with pleurisy, and one octogenarian pothead vegan with COPD and a trust account.
At $20 a strawberry, they have to be absolutely perfect, which means a huge amount of waste.
If I’m paying $20 for a strawberry, I’m not going to just eat it, I’m going to have a party where all my friends can see that I’m the sort of person who eats $20 strawberries. And when you look at the overall cost of the party, $20 for the centeiece is a pretty good deal.
What wine do I pair this with?
That is SO Progressive!!!
That's a lot of cheese for a backwards nowhere berry. On steroids.
The magic word "marketing" gives you permission. This is what Bernie hates the very most. I can sympathize, but keep your commie fingers off my assets, Bernie. Your revulsion is not your permission.
Erewhon was a Boston store that Paul Hawken joined and then turned into a model for food, without ladies in nursing clothes, but for hippies. He built a huge cereal company by the same name and then the Catalog and stores Called Smith and Hawken - selling tools at a price similar to $20 strawberry.
Some Japanese take perverse pride in owning something inordinately costly and hilariously useless, such as a knock-off Oyster Perpetual with Rolex spelt with an I, or a square meter garden plot in downtown Nagoya suitable for growing only $500 watermelons. Most Japanese find these ludicrous acquirers amusing, but they're too polite to laugh at them in public.
The customers for those $20 strawberries will find me not quite so gracious.
If Lazlo were still here, he'd spin a tale where giving a $20 strawberry to a woman results in anal.
I thik DeBeers was very successful with this approach in marketing diamonds.
In Canada customers are refusing to buy strawberries on sale in their grocery stores in the belief that it hurts the US if they deprive themselves. So maybe there's an opportunity for the Japanese single strawberry supplier just waiting to be exploited in Canada?
"Erewhon: or, Over the Range, is a novel by English writer Samuel Butler, first published in 1872, set in a fictional country discovered and explored by the protagonist. The book is a satire on Victorian society."
I always thought "erewhon" was simply "nowhere" spelled backwards. Need to be more observant.
You get to sneak in an extra syllable with erewhon. More is better…
I can’t get past her sunglasses. It puts me off to have someone communicating with me behind sunglasses. What is she hiding?
effinayright said, "anyone who's been to Japan knows it's the frickin' Japanese who market ultra-high priced fruit, primarily to themselves.. Go lecture THEM about their "excess"."
Not too many years ago two of what the Japanese considered to be perfect melons, grown and raised by a particular Japanese gardener known for perfectionism, sold at auction for over $1 million USD.
I've seen some great melons in my time, but no way I'm paying anywhere close to a million bucks for em.
How much for the girl's plumped lip and smooth jawline?
As my favorite American political economist P.T. Barnum noted: "There's a sucker born every minute. So, never give a sucker an even break nor smarten up a chump. Instead, make your hay [sales] while the sun shines!" America!
$20 bucks is ridiculous. Whole Foods has it on sale for $14.95.
What wine do I pair this with?
Boones Farm Strawberry Hill. Duh!
What are the odds that a strawberry, or other fruit or vegetable, that looks like the Platonic ideal of a strawberry, actually tastes quite a bit better than other strawberries? In my experience, the look of a fruit and its taste don't strongly correlate.
It isn’t a slow news day. How about a post on whether Biden’s auto pen pardons are void ab into?
Gag me with a spoon.
I always thought "erewhon" was simply "nowhere" spelled backwards.
Yes and you were correct. Are correct.
Wow - the Guardian was always low grade, but now appears to be nothing but an anti-Trump rag. Not only did the article about overly expensive strawberries from Japan have the gratuitous jab at Trump (gee, how can I connect this irrelevant subject to Trump?), but there were anti-Trump messages both before and after the article.
On the strawberry itself, yes, Japan is known for trying to come up with the perfect whatever and then selling it for 100-1000x its normal worth. But when it comes to strawberries, local grown at peak season is the way to go. The best strawberries I’ve ever had by a mile come from here is Wisconsin at the end of June, and are way better than anything I’ve gotten shipped in from California. Go to the Cedarburg Strawberry festival and get freshly picked (albeit small) strawberries that are juicy and red through and through, not soft pink inside like the overpriced one from Japan.
I don't see how something supposedly picked at the point of perfection in Japan is perfect at the point when it's encased in plastic in California.
But I'm actually more interested in the gross emoting of the woman in the first video. I really hate watching video of people over-enjoying food, hamming it up about how much pleasure is getting through to them... and not to us... as though we must be so intensely envious.
We are getting ready to go to Japan next month. We’ve been reading up and watching videos on Tokyo. This does not surprise me a bit and I expect to see as much or more extravagant when I’m there.
Putting aside the plastic waste problem here, I can only say that the bite into the strawberry was too noisy. A strawberry should not audibly crunch. Ever.
I give the $20 strawberry the raspberry.
I've gone sour on first-rate strawberries hawked by third-rate influencers.
Unfortunately, the fruit and vegetable varieties that we buy are not the ones that taste the best, but the ones that look the best and have the longest viable shelf life. The fruit we buy are grown for what the seller wants.
@Jim, go to Osaka also while you're there. Especially where food is concerned, I've found Osaka (aka "The Nation's Kitchen" - "天下の台所") to be much better than Tokyo. The people are nicer too. More down to earth. People jokingly refer to Osakans as the 'midwesterners' of Japan.
The reason those berries are $20 isn't just because they're flown to LA. It's because homeless people have to be provided a overdose, flown from LA to Japan and ground up so they can be spread on the luxury produce fields. It's been going on for a long time.
What did you think that Beatles song was about?
Let me take you down
'Cause I'm going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever
Why am I not surprised that this is a story out of LA? Overpriced food? Check. Absurd use of plastic in a community that deplores single use plastic? Check. Overpaying for goods and services that fail to measure up to the cheap goods and services in the rest of America? Check. Bragging about these things on the Internet? Check.
You can get strawberries that large at a Texas HEB, usually hydroponically grown. I found they are not as flavorful as smaller berries, so I tend to avoid the large ones.
Aggie said...
Unfortunately, the fruit and vegetable varieties that we buy are not the ones that taste the best, but the ones that look the best and have the longest viable shelf life.
Also true of many seed varieties for home gardening. Bred for looks, pest resistance, etc. Ever get the chance, try produce from heirloom seeds. Best tomatoes, green beans and cantaloupe I ever tasted.
I want to buy a pint of those strawberries and duct tape them to the wall of an art museum: Strawberry Arbitrage (maybe I could tape up an alarm clock, too).
Isn't that how Shepherd Book secured his spot on Serenity? #IYKYK
In Japan, reh-pu-rah-kons supposedly love strawberries and like to celebrate St Patrick's day with beer and one of these tasty big-uns...which for a reh-pu-rah-kon is like eating a whole chicken.
What wine do I pair this with?
In general, if you’re going to eat something sweet with a dessert wine, the rule of thumb is that the wine must be sweeter than the dessert rather than the other way around.
In this case it’s going to have to be very sweet, and if you’re trying to impress your wine-savvy friends with something to match such a sensational and costly piece of fruit, very expensive and well-known also.
A premier cru Sauternes dessert wine from Bordeaux might fit the bill, especially the most famous and expensive of all, Chateau d’Yquem. However, even these may not be sweet enough. They are typically paired with something less sweet, classically either foie gras or Roquefort blue cheese served with dried fruit and nuts.
To really stand up to the sugars in the super-strawberry, I think the way to go would be a super-sweet Hungarian Tokay wine, particularly the famous and exceptionally expensive Royal Tokaji Aszú “Eszencia”. This was the “Wine of Kings” from the Middle Ages up to the 19th Century, and a particular favorite of the Russian Czars. It is said that a spoonful of this famous sticky wine is a dessert all by itself.
Ice wine from a great maker like Dr. Loosen in Germany or Inniskillin in Canada would also work. Those are made by waiting for the grapes to freeze before pressing them, which concentrates the sugars and produces a delicate, extremely sweet wine.
Another alternative would be a top shelf Trockenbeerenauslese late harvest wine from Germany or Austria, such as those from Kracher. These are made from late-harvested grapes affected by “noble rot”, like Sauternes and Tokaji/Tokay.
Mention should be made of one of the world’s other great sweet wines, the SGN (Selection des Grains Nobles) from Alsace, where the grapes are individually harvested one by one at the peak of their sweetness. Those from Domaine Weinbach or Domaine Zind-Humbrecht are perhaps the most famed. However I fear that like the Sauternes, they may not be quite sweet enough for this particular dish.
Finally, many people would be tempted to have a fine Champagne with a sweet treat like this strawberry. They should consider getting one with a “Demi-sec” or “Doux” classification, which are sweeter than the “Brut” that is commonly drunk. They are available from most of the great Champagne houses like Roederer and Veuve Clicquot. Particularly well-known sweet champagnes come from the houses of Beaufort and Fleury.
I am well acquainted with all of these because my wife is a fanatic devotee of all sweet dessert wines. She will drink them even with her main course or as an aperitif before dinner, and scoffs at the petit-bourgeois notion that the best wines are dry rather than sweet. In this preference, she is in good company, going back from the Russian royal family, to our Revolutionary forefathers — Washington once had Jefferson send him 30 cases of Chateau d’Yquem from France — to the days of Ancient Rome.
“In the garden I see, west purple shower bells and tea
Orange birds and river cousins, dressed in green
Pretty music I hear, so happy and loud
Blue flowers echo from a cherry cloud”
Althouse.blogspot.com: Come for the $20 mutant Japanese strawberry commentary, stay for the dessert wine sommelier recommendations. What a great blog.
The Guardian author totally erases Japanese culture in order to denigrate Americans. Whooo boy.
and somewhere, Godzilla smiles…
No all excesses are decadent. A world where people pay too much to eat a perfect strawberry is not the worst of all possible worlds.
Anything in The Guardian is automatically suspicious ... it's even more anti-Trump than the Post or the NYT
now do $1000 a pound Waygoo rotten beef!
they SAY, that it's "almost as creamy, as eating pure lard!"
Erewhon, indeed. Somewhere, Samuel Butler smiles and nods knowingly at this absurd excess.
Erewhon started in Boston in 1966. 50 years ago, it was a hippie macrobiotic place that sold grain and seeds and beans in bulk from bins. It was anything but a pricey, upscale store. The company had troubles with the FDA and financial problems and the only store that survived was the Los Angeles store, which went through various changes of ownership.
Interesting that the store started out as a kind of cult and is now a cult of a very different kind. A missing link of sorts: the original owners' son co-founded the fitness equipment company Peloton, another upscale cult. Young people seem to want to recapture the weirdness of 60s-70s America. Their elders want cults that are exclusive and keep the riffraff out.
@ Hassayamper
Or you could just pour some vodka into a Slurpee.
Lazarus said...
"Interesting that the store started out as a kind of cult and is now a cult of a very different kind. "
Interesting that the store started out as a kind of cult and now those cult members are rich (like their parents were).
fify!
Those are great pairing recommendations and I’d add something from JJ Prum, auslese level on the oeschle. You could also go the other way with something dry to off set the sweet, an extra cold blanc de blanc will dull the sweetness a bit…sniff..
My grandfather was fond of saying "God could have made a better berry than the strawberry . . . but he didn't."
Demi Lovato gave it an 8 out of 10.
So, I went to the Erewhon website. They serve breakfast! Wow! $16.00 breakfast burritos! Waffle House it ain't!
It's okay, rich people like to overpay for all sorts of nonsense, it makes them feel important! Don't bother them! 😜
I can’t get past her sunglasses. It puts me off to have someone communicating with me behind sunglasses. What is she hiding?
She looks like a dazzlingly beautiful young woman, but I too would like to see her eyes to be sure.
During COVID there was a young lady who had just graduated from ultrasound technologist school and got her first job at the hospital where I work. For months I never saw her without her face mask, but as a red blooded heterosexual man I noticed how exceptionally pretty her eyes were, with a very fit and attractive body.
Alas, when I finally saw her without the mask, the rest of her face did not live up to the standards of her gorgeous eyes, with a large, sharp witch nose, bad teeth, and acne. She does have a heart of gold, though, and if I were a young single fellow I would have been enchanted enough by her eyes and sensationally shapely figure to overlook the rest and pursue her.
Yes, I’m a sexist old goat ogling the young women at work and judging them for their physical beauty. Tough shit. That’s how I’m wired.
Somebody should mention the Plant City Strawberry Festival. Thing about strawberries here is the taste will vary month to month and year to year. People claim it has to do with when the area gets cold fronts. Pronounce Wimauma.
"I really hate watching video of people over-enjoying food"
Yes. We've all had strawberries. The best strawberry you've ever had, is the best strawberry you've ever had. Big deal.
She got her viral bump for the post, but the parody guy is someone that I'd follow.
I lived in Japan twice. They are big on the giant individual fruits for gifts, usually wrapped fancy papers around them. Sadly the consensus is that they taste like flavored water, it’s all about the show, not the go of a pleasurable mouthful.
And another annoying thing about Tom Brady is his strawberry issues.
If Lazlo were still here, he'd spin a tale where giving a $20 strawberry to a woman results in anal.
Or bukkake. It could go either way.
- Krumhorn
If she had matched her lipstick to the Strawberry, she would have nailed it.
Michael: "If Lazlo were still here, he'd spin a tale where giving a $20 strawberry to a woman results in anal."
Girl with a Ponytail on a Treadmill says:
(swish, swish)
2.8 miles. Okay, finish hard.
(swish, swish)
That strawberry is going to taste good.
(swish, swish)
I think my $20 Erewhon Strawberry Diet is working well.
(swish, swish)
At first I thought spending my whole day's food budget on one berry might not be smart. But once my stomach shrank, it's really not so bad. I appreciate the strawberry so much when I finally get to eat it. And it is fairly big. Sometimes I can pace myself and take an hour to eat it.
(swish, swish)
And it's doing wonders for my thigh gap. Professor Koslowski really likes it. Last time, she was so fascinated by it: she spent a good quarter-hour just bouncing her cock from side to side in it, like playing a triangle in an orchestra.
(swish, swish)
She was so excited she didn't even take off her bra with the falsies in it.
(swish, swish)
And she said my ass is smaller but shaplier - i didn't even have to spread my cheeks, and she got it right in, without very much lube!
(swish, swish)
I think the $20 Erewhon Strawberry may get me that summa.
(swish, swish)
3 miles! That strawberry is going to taste so good.
JSM
We have Japanese good friends, who live in Tokyo. When we lived in Panama, they visited us there. We had papayas and mangoes growing in the back yard. It blew their minds that they could just go out and pick a papaya off the tree and eat it - because, as they told me, in Tokyo they cost about 15 bucks apiece (20 yrs ago).
Who pays these rags to be so anti-Trump?
I have never heard of this store. Wish that were still true.
ugh..
Some background.
@Michael, @Krumhorn, "If Lazlo were still here, he'd spin a tale where giving a $20 strawberry to a woman results in anal."
I heard some long-time cadre from the 80s explain to me what Japanese women were willing to do for American blue-jeans. 'Spinning of tales' isn't necessary.
Who pays these rags to be so anti-Trump?
Probably you and me.
My guess is every ding-bat who shops at EarWorm - voted for Kamala.
Two comments
Firefly Episode 1: https://youtu.be/bYopf8KSy4o
Having picked strawberries on a Japanese truck farm in the Sacramento valley, I can tell you, like wine grapes, the sweetest fruit is in the ripe but small ones.
Ann, now can you find a Tik-Tok video of that same young woman peeling and eating a $100 banana from Japan? I promise to buy something from your Amazon portal if you do.
If you could recreate the experience —in a store on the other side of the planet, of biting into a tree ripened apple, just picked on a frosty September morning, it would easily be worth $20.
I recall there being an outdoor clothing/equipment store called Erehwon just off of State St. in the early 1980s.
"When I emailed one prominent scholar of the Roman empire about the strawberry...".
Hey! Stay in your lane! Keep your God-Damned Commie thoughts off the Roman Empire. And yes, the "Empire" is capitalized.
Aggie said @ 8:26
Unfortunately, the fruit and vegetable varieties that we buy are not the ones that taste the best.
**************
The fruit from my early days, Black Plums and Tomatoes, used to drip their sweet juices all over my shirts. Boy they were good. Now I walk right by them at the market.
I recall there being an outdoor clothing/equipment store called Erehwon just off of State St. in the early 1980s.
Yes. It went out of business in the 2000s sometime, and then at some point was resurrected as a store in Monona. There was also a store in Bayshore, and a couple in Chicago. They were bought out a couple years ago, pre-COVID.
the spring wind
scattering wrappers
I saw it on Althouse
but when I clicked away a twenty
was still rustling in my pocket
Yes Jaq a crisp ripe Mac off the tree is on my short list of death bed wonders. Publix now sells Macs in a bag well off season. There are some at the store today. It isn’t the perfection of the orchard but they are firm and tart and sweet. It does recall the joy.,,
Jonathans are (were!) the best. Where did they go?
Not backwards but an anagram
Sally327 said...
“In Canada customers are refusing to buy strawberries on sale in their grocery stores in the belief that it hurts the US if they deprive themselves.”
The inspiration for the Canadian strategy came from Blazing Saddles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_JOGmXpe5I
>Marcus Bressler said...
Not backwards but an anagram<
Yes, and not necessarily an anagram of "nowhere." Some think it is "here now" to contrast Erewhon with Victorian England. Butler apparently never clarified it.
What, at this point, is the definition of excess? What is excessive for some, is not for others.
Also, there is a diminishing return on enjoyment of higher priced foodstuffs. $500 bourbon isn't ten times better than $50 bourbon, from an 'omg! this is awesome!' point.
Some funny comments here but I don't think many commenters have ever been in a Japanese Supermarket.
All produce is near perfect and, actually, reasonably prriced. Most food stores also have a special section of "Gift Food". Gifting in Japan is culturally significant and corners are not cut.
Anyways, "near perfect" does not cut it when a gift is involved. And, yes, that does include the presentation. Big bucks.
As for "WayGoo", I am surprised to note the extremely sensible Gilbar (aka "Mr Trophy Trout", in Iowa) mocking $1,000 a pound beef. That Sir, is some seriously good shit.
And, while I'm sure you can spend that and much more for "gift" quality Wagyu, fabulous A5, BMS 8-10 can be had for $200 - $400 and is widely available.
Like the most exquisite Champagne with trillions of tiny bubbles, it will touch your palate and miraculously ascend straight to heaven. Some decent product is available at "wagyushop.com".
A warning: Too much of a good thing is not a good thing. Eating A5 like a normal steak is not a good thing, Eight to ten ounces of "perfect" beef WILL make you gag. Soooo rich.
One other thing, don't for a minute think you're eating the real thing if you're eating American or Aussi "wagyu". Not the same. Not even close.
I bet if you packed it in sugar, let it sit overnight, put it on top of one of those little round sponge cakes, and put whipped cream on top like God intended it would be even better.
The strawberries you buy in the grocery store are woody, due to them being cultivated for store shelf life not taste. For good strawberries, maximum ripeness and flavor lasts only a day or two.
The very best strawberry is the Senator Dunlap, created by a Methodist minister and named after an obscure Illinois State Senator who was then president of the Illinois Horticulture Society. You need to grow them yourself or find a pick your own place that grows them.
My grandmother grew Senator Dunlaps in her farm garden in Iowa, and served fresh strawberries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day during strawberry season. If I came in from a long day of working on the farm and was sent to pick strawberries, I’d feel it was time well spent. She never served them the same way twice. Unforgettable.
i'm not saying that these Strawberries (or expensive steaks) aren't tasty.. I'm just pointing out, that there are LOTS of things people waste money on*.
people waster money on*
i heard of a guy, once; that spent about a THOUSAND dollars on a fishing pole.. when he already had THREE others in his car!!
And what does he ACTUALLY fish with? some old cane pole that he bought used!
California grown strawberries are $4-5 per small basket. Some years they taste like a $19 one. But if you get a basket that isn't as sweet then buy some whipped cream to cover them on shortcake or add sugar to a bowl full. Or go to 'airwan' and buy a $19 one.
If you've ever been lucky to find and eat a wild strawberry in the woods, you will understand how tasteless the farmed variety we buy in supermarkets is by comparison.
The parody is awesome.
Climate change burned LA
A strawberry flown from Japan though
That would be awesome
The Japanese pay top dollar for the best cherries in our region.
There's really nothing different here, but cost, than pears from Harry and David. (Harry Stone and Larry David, not really)
@Bob Boyd, we need regular postings where commentary can be submitted in haiku form only.
There were 99 comments before I added to the mix. I merely wish to know if I am alone in my desire to smack the hat and sunglasses off her smug, self-satisfied face.
A few years ago Althouse had us doing these certain poems that had a specific form. I can't remember what they were called or what the exact rules were, but it was a lot fun for a while. It was probably in 2015 or 2016. Do you remember that?
The Japanese wealthy - especially businessmen - are crazy about their food. Flying into North Africa once from Paris, I was seated next to a Japanese gent and we struck up a conversation. He was a fish buyer; He had gotten word through his network of a specific fish being caught in the Mediterranean that was prized for sushi. He was on his way to pick it up, and had a chartered flight going back to Japan. He had brought coolers packed with dry ice in anticipation. He wouldn't disclose the price of the fish, but I got the sense it was north of $10,000 US, and this was in the 1990s.
Before my time Bob. in 2016 I was at USAG-Humphreys and commenting from army.mil systems is a no-no. Sounds like it would've been right up my alley though.
I was South Korea for about ten hours once.
Higgledy Piggledy
Twenty buck strawberries,
now in Los Angeles, straight from Japan.
Sold to the leisure class Veblen was talking about
Must be delectable, eat if you can.
I have an entire 4' x 12' raised bed devoted to strawberries - I think I have seven varieties going. NO WAY is this monster of a strawberry better than the ones I grow.
pantsuited pantload
hillary rodHAM clinton
putin’s whooah
The very best strawberry is the Senator Dunlap
Nonsense. Cardinals are far better than Dunlaps.
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