THE ANTIQUE
Silver sugar casters
Strawberry season is in full flow, with veg patches and grocers' shelves full of these delicious soft fruits that only require a sprinkle of sugar and a dollop of cream to turn them into pudding perfection. According to English Heritage food historian Sam Bilton, only the small Alpine strawberries were available in Tudor and Stuart times. The modern strawberry descends from 18th-century crossbreeding of Virginia strawberries from America with larger Chilean strawberries and, by the 19th century, Britain had become renowned for its range of large, succulent varieties which were known as (several of them, including Royal Sovereign, grow in the kitchen garden of Audley End House). In Victorian times, when seasonality was everything, the arrival of the first punnets of summer strawberries was a cause for celebration. To sprinkle sugar over the juicy fruits, a caster was used (sometimes called a sifter),
