Going Sentimental Over Strawberries

CULTURAL NOTES

Richard Kinnud

Strawberry Wine is the title of a song that hit the airwaves in the nineties.  A ballad, it tells the story of a woman who became emotionally nostalgic of her first experience of loving which was described to be “bittersweet, green on the vine like strawberry wine.”  This indicated a feeling of excitement during the time that a relationship was lively yet has led to dejection at a time of separation.  Thus, the character of the song asked at one stanza if it was some true love or a loss of something referred to in the song  as “innocence” that was being grieved over.
    According to billboard.com , the song peaked to top 65 in Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1996 and has stayed on it for some ten weeks.  The same source said it peaked to top 11 on Digital Song Sales in May 2021 and stayed on the chart for two weeks.  In the locality of Baguio and thereabouts, the song is heard from country radio stations, at bars, and even in personal occasions.  These indicate a great following of the song.
    It must be because the story it conveys is easily relatable – loving, splitting then broken-heartedness.  Or perhaps, the setting as it locates the story at the countryside.  Or could it be the strawberry and products derived from it?
    Baguio City is so much identified with strawberries and products like strawberry jam, preserves, and strawberry wine.  There’s a greater percentage though of strawberries produced from nearby towns especially from La Trinidad, the capital town of Benguet.
    Under the one-town-one-product (OTOP) program of the government, the strawberry industry is the one that La Trinidad chose to promote.  In fact, the premier fiesta of the town celebrated this March is dubbed as the Strawberry Festival.
    Strawberries are not endemic to the place.  The website of La Trinidad municipality tells that it was introduced in the 19th century by foreign occupants.  There was a time when the town is known as the Salad Bowl of the Philippines for the vegetables that were grown here but the efforts to diversify from other towns of the province producing vegetables led to the addition of the brand “Strawberry Field of the Philippines.”  The widest farm in the town is located within the compounds of Benguet State University, a principally an agricultural school that have also had modest contribution in the development of strawberry as a commercially viable product.
    Still according to the town’s website, the first strawberry festival “was held in 1981, to showcase that the strawberry was being produced in La Trinidad.”   Recent memories of the festival got to the next level of not just about letting people know of strawberries but the full-blast promotion as a centerpiece in the town’s agro-industry to include agritourism. 
    As we write this, an agro-industrial fair is happening in the town where local products are on display.  And by the time, this piece goes out in print in the Sunday paper, the “Duting tan Dukto”, a community breakfast in which the title actually means “Berries and Sweet Potato” in the Ibaloi language, is already done. 
    After the festival, strawberries will still make brisk business in town and the nearby city of Baguio.  Strawberry picking will certainly reach its peak.  Even non-strawberry products printed with strawberries on them like keychains, shirts, bonnets, cups, and similar items will rise with them. 
    Farmers and businessmen are happy but many of them are thinking what happens after the peak.  One farmer said in jest (mixing Tagalog andIloko), “Samantalahin habang napudot!”  Another expressed his wariness saying “Sapay koma ta agnanayun nga sentro ti strawberry ditoy.” (Hopefully, this place remains a center for strawberries.)
    In the social media, we of course see agro-industrial fairs being done everywhere.  Local governments and other institutions are pushing programs similar to Duting tan Dukto.  In places like Nueva Vizcaya, strawberry farms are being promoted such as in Malico, Sta. Fe and Baretbet, Bagabag.  Can the strawberry of Baguio and La Trinidad suffer the same fate as what was described in the song Strawberry Wine?
    Of course, the farmers here and the local government unit  are not taking things sitting down as expressed in the essences of the theme “A Festival for Recovery: Building a Brighter Future from Adversities.”  The word “recovery” must be alluding to the recent pandemic that hit everyone but other words such as “brighter future” and (combating) adversities must be referring to other else fortifying the strawberry industry in town.
Happy Strawberry Festival, La Trinidad!