Ha! you're pretty funny. :-)
OK, the modern strawberries that we all know and love were developed
from 2 new world species.
BUT...
There were other species of strawberry that always lived in Europe
(and beyond). So, yes. Europeans WERE eating strawberries before
they were introduced from the New World.
Here's a quote from a web page that tells a little mo

" The Wild Strawberry or Wood Strawberry Fragaria vesca is native
to the temperate regions of Eurasia and North America. It has become
distributed worldwide and is sometimes found naturalised in southern
Africa. It is a diploid species (i.e. 2 sets of chromosomes).The
finding of strawberry achenes in neolithic archaeological
excavations, shows that wild strawberries have been eaten by people
since the earliest of times. Fragaria vesca was being cultivated in
Europeans gardens by the 1500's (Renaissance) and after about 1530,
cultivated strawberries are clearly larger than wild ones,
indicating selective breeding. Although Fragaria vesca is still
grown in gardens for domestic use, it is not used in commercial
strawberry production because of the development of the Modern
Garden Strawberry Fragaria ananassa."

Steve


Cereus-validus wrote:

You no fool me Steverino,

You're making that up.

You claim that Europeans were eating strawberries before they were
introduced from the New World.

Next you will be saying that Romans wore wrist watches with Roman numerals
on them!!


"Steve" wrote in message

More mystery than you apparently think.
If your story is correct, how do you explain that they were called
strawberries before Columbus sailed to America and before anyone in
Europe knew that native Americans existed?
I'll admit that perhaps the exact spelling of strawberry wasn't set
until a little later but the name was there.
I know that some people believe they were once called stray berries
perhaps because their runners let them stray away from the patch
where they were planted. When people started mulching with straw,
the name slowly evolved into strawberry.
I wasn't there so I don't know. ;-)

Steve