February 2025: Strawberries Romanoff

Valentine’s Day is synonymous with chocolate and strawberries, individually or together, in any form. But what was its beginning? Like many of our feast days, it has an interesting history -- Valentine’s Day actually started in Rome, as an ancient Roman fertility festival, Lupercalia, celebrated on February 15th. Then, around 270 A.D., a priest named Valentine performed marriages for young men in secret, defying the marriage ban of Emperor Claudius II. He thought single men made better soldiers.

Imprisoned for his defiance, it seems he fell in love with his jailer’s daughter and sent her a letter signed “From your Valentine.” He was executed on February 14. After Christianity developed and the church was making pagan feast days into Christian ones, St. Valentine was recognized as a saint by Pope Gelasius I in 496 CE, over two centuries after his death, which established February 14th as his feast day, replacing Lupercalia.

Valentine Day’s popularity in Britain started in the 1600s, and by the 1700s handwritten love notes and often small tokens were being exchanged. British chocolatier Richard Cadbury created the first heart-shaped box of chocolates in 1861 and chocolate became linked with Valentine’s Day, merging the established Valentine’s tradition of love tokens with Cadbury’s delicious confectionery and romantic packaging. The 1800s Industrial Revolution saw mass-produced printed cards exploding in popularity, which gradually faded until the 1950s and modern consumerism, which transformed it into the commercial holiday we know today. 

Strawberries Romanoff

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Ingredients

  • 3 pt. fresh strawberries

  • 1/2 c. kirsch

  • 1 pt. vanilla ice cream

  • 3/4 c. sugar

  • 2 Tbsp. curacao

  • 1/2 c. heavy cream, whipped

Method

  1. Crush 1-pint berries; add kirsch and 1/4 cup sugar.

  2. Cover and chill 24 hour

  3. Just before serving (40 minutes approximately), combine 1/2 cup sugar, remaining berries, and crushed mixture; mix well.

  4. Cover; chill for 30 minutes.

  5. Soften ice cream with curacao, fold in ice cream.

  6. Serve berries topped with ice cream mixture.

Courtesy of Celia Esmond, House of Lancaster Cookery Book, 1986