Why do Wimbledon fans eat strawberries and cream?
Some 140,000 portions are consumed during the tennis competition each year.
Wimbledon 2024 has begun and while all British eyes will be on hopefuls Emma Raducanu, Andy Murray and Jack Draper, many spectators will no doubt be looking forward to tucking into a delicious portion of strawberries and cream.
The delicacy has become almost as synonymous with the SW19 championship as the tennis itself, with more than 140,000 punnets consumed each year, according to the official Wimbledon website.
And this year the iconic championship is planning to serve even bigger strawberries for the same price.
For the last 14 years, strawberries and cream have remained at £2.50 for visitors, and while the number of strawberries – 10 per punnet – has also not changed, experts have predicted the berries could be juicier than usual after a wet and dark winter slowed growing times, resulting in bigger and more flavoursome fruits.
Growers said the wet and cold weather this spring, as well as less sunlight, had delayed the British strawberry season by a fortnight.
“The slower ripening period will allow flavours to develop as the strawberries grow to become particularly large and juicy. It will be a fantastic year for British strawberries," Nick Marston, the chair of British Berry Growers (BBG), told Guardian.
But why do we associate Wimbledon with the classic British summertime dish?
Strawberries and cream have been served up at the Wimbledon tennis championships since the very first tournament back in 1877, when there were just 200 spectators.
While there's no official explanation from Wimbledon about why the classic fruit was offered to the crowd, there are a couple of potential theories.
The first, quite simply, is that the 1877 championships was held during the British strawberry season, of which the peak occurs in June and July.
"It was probably two things — strawberries were in season at the time the tournament was played, and in Victorian England they had become a fashionable thing to eat," Johnny Perkins, the then head of PR for the All England Club, told CNN in 2015.
"They were part of afternoon tea, which had become a fashionable ritual, and that took root at Wimbledon."
Perkins went on to say the strawberries form part of the air of old-fashioned Englishness that is associated with the iconic event.
"Many people see Wimbledon as being like tennis in an English garden," he adds. "The tennis is the main thing, of course, but it is a big part of the English summer and is a day out for people as well."
Some historians, however, have an alternative theory and believe the now classic combination became a winner because it was once consumed by royalty.
The origins of the classic combination are actually credited to King Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, during the early 16th century.
According to Heritage Fine Foods when the King visited Wolsey's home at Hampton Court, not far from Wimbledon, the chancellor's cook is said to have served wild strawberries and cream as a dessert.
At the time dairy was considered to be something of a peasant food, but because it was consumed by the King, the combination of the fruit and the cream is thought to have grown in popularity and now remains the number one single food item served at the All England Club.
Wimbledon's strawberries and cream by numbers
Each year more than 38.4 tons of strawberries (1.92 million strawberries to be precise) are consumed during the tournament that's more than 140,000 punnets, according to the official Wimbledon website.
The price for a portion of a minimum of 10 strawberries and cream at Wimbledon has remained at a very reasonable sounding £2.50 per serving since 2010.
The strawberries at Wimbledon are always grade 1 English strawberries of the highest quality from Kent, from LEAF-registered farms (LEAF is a charity promoting Integrated Farm Management balancing organic with chemical practices).
To ensure the utmost freshness, the berries are picked at 4.00am, collected from the packing plant at 9.00am and are delivered to the club for inspection and hulling.
They are then enjoyed by guests on the same day as they were picked.
Happy eating tennis fans!
