Ingredient trend alert: Pickled green strawberries

To become an ingredient of the moment, pickled green strawberries have been gathering speed. First, René Redzepi of Copenhagen’s much-renowned Noma pointed out the subtle difference in color and flavor between a very green-white "unripe unripe" and a desirably ivory-green "perfectly unripe" strawberry as he spoon-fed host David Chang from a plate of still-quivering sea scallops and sliced green strawberries puddled in emerald-green fresh pea juice on PBS’s In the Mind of a Chef. Earlier this month, Thomas Keller’s minions were pickling them to add to butter-poached lobster with beet puree, curry, and pink peppercorn yogurt at The French Laundry, while at New York City’s Per Se, they decorated a palate-whetter of Champagne granite, turnip panna cotta, hibiscus-rhubarb glaze, and lime ravigote. What do they taste like? Think more kiwi than strawberry, with a texture like under ripe honeydew melon and cucumber. And where can you find them? In your backyard, of course, if you’ve got a strawberry patch going, or at any u-pick farm.