With strawberries ripening earlier than ever this year, there is now no need for them to be imported from Spain, which is great news.

You can enjoy British strawberries from now on. Their early arrival is a consequence of the excellent levels of light during April that encouraged the bees to pollinate the plants and the fruits to set.

Fruit farmers are predicting that 2011’s yields will be plentiful and that their crops will be sweeter and tastier than ever.

A popular way of serving strawberries now is to purée any of the irregular-sized fruits with a little icing sugar and lemon juice and having strained out the pips, spoon the mix over a serving of whole strawberries.

This not only helps use up any irregular-sized fruits, it looks attractive, as you can see from the photograph taken of the strawberries I was served when dining at Daylesford last year.

This dish is a splendid way of using up any misshapen fruits, which taste great but are irregular in size.

Other ways of serving strawberries include placing them alongside a small dish of balsamic vinegar and another of icing sugar, then invite guests to dip the individual fruits first into one and then the other.