Along with tropical fruits like papayas, mangos, pineapples, mameys, tunas (prickly pear fruit), and guavas, Mexican people like strawberries. Just try to get jam in any other flavor at your restaurant breakfast.

I wouldn't have thought that strawberries would be popular in Mexico. They're a European fruit after all, and Mexico is blessed with so many others. Besides, strawberries are labor-intensive and don't keep well.

Strawberries aren't particularly prevalent in the mercados, but on the highways and in the plazas, vendors sell walk-away cups of fresas con crema.

In San Miguel de Allende, if you have a hankering for strawberries and cream, you go to this cart on the east side of the Jardín. The nice vendor will fix you a large cup of strawberries with however much sugar you want and lots of sour cream.

Yeah. That's sour cream. You can get strawberries with whipped cream in Mexico, but this dish is not as commonly available: if that's what you want, you have to ask for fresas con chantilly. Fresas con crema means strawberries with sour cream.

A word about sour cream in Mexico (where it's called crema acidificada). It's not as sour as sour cream in the U. S. There's just a hint of sharpness to it—enough to keep the cream from being cloying. We spoon it onto various fruits, on leek-and-potato soup, fajitas and, I'm embarrassed to say, Jello. (Yes, Jean and I have rediscovered Jello (gelatina), which, with crema acidificada on top, is really, really good.)

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There's an eatery in San Miguel called La Fresa—The Strawberry. But the name in this case isn't referring to fruit. It's referring to the shapely woman in the high-style hat, a fashion plate from the '40s.

The Urban Dictionary gives fresa as "a social slang term used in Mexico ... to describe stuck up ... girls or boys that have picky tastes, are extremely spoiled and always get their way, have little concern for the needs of others, and are snob[s], rude, and ... obnoxious." I mentioned this usage of the word fresa to my artist friend Brian. He said (sounding as he does like Richard Simmons), "OH the FREsas! You SEE them in the caFÉS with their CELLphones and their CIGarettes. They're SO SPOILED, they just make me SICK!"

The fresas we see in San Miguel tend to be visitors from Mexico City. They arrive in expensive new cars, dressed in high style. They diss the locals. They're abusive to waiters. They're generally annoying.

The pouty-looking girl in the picture is an example. Her stylishly ripped jeans, hipbones poking coquettishly above the waistband, her long, perfect white fingernails, her throwaway $200 haircut, her makeup just so—all shout fresa. Exactly the way she intended.

As Brian said, you see them in the cafés—ripe and tempting, just waiting to be picked.

[Note: You may have noticed what appear to be ears of corn under the wheels of the fruit vendor's cart. Well, that's what they are, borrowed from a nearby corn-on-the-cob vendor's cart. This is an example of Mexican flexible thinking. Use whatever's handy to stop the cart from rolling down the slope. No rocks nearby. Hmmm. What to do? I got it! Gimme a couple a those ears of corn.

I absolutely guarantee you that tomorrow, some tourist—maybe a fresa—is gonna be served that corn, and a couple of fresh ears will be chocking the wheels. Waste not, want not.]