I don’t think I’ve ever stemmed a strawberry. Do you mean chopping off the green 'fro up top?
As for my OP and its intention… beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. Some might find a big ole pile of mashed potatoes visually appealing, others an unscaled whole fish with clear eyes, ready to be scaled, cleaned, and tossed on a grill 
It’s a free-flow thread with no rules.
If ingredients are allowed, I’d like to submit my prickly pear fruit.
I pick these off of the cactus in my backyard. Then I have to burn the glochids off of the fruit, then peel the skin off, slice them, push the slices through a strainer to remove the seeds and am left with a delicious jelly type substance. I loved putting that jelly on fresh grapefruits.
I know its a lot of work, but its kind of fun and worth it.
Well, there’re different ways to stem. If I’m serving strawberries berries sliced, I core them with a paring knife first. Depending on the variety and condition, this can remove the less-flavorful core, and preserves the flesh that would otherwise be scalped off with the 'fro.
Back in the Pleistocene, during my career as a professional strawberry picker, we stemmed as we picked, and were docked pay if any tops were missed. This was done by twisting off the 'fro as you filled your flat.
Now, quality berries in season get stemmed by my incisors.
Oh. I just cut off the top end & cut the strawb in half or quarters, depending on size. Coring seems like a major PITA.
I think it’s worth the small extra effort. Similarly, snipping green beans and hand-shelling top-node green peas.
You should survey Onions on who here has worked in agriculture. Who, for instance, knows or cares that peas grow their pods off the vine in nodes, and that size and tenderness (and yes, beauty) varies by node?
I snip green beans (if you mean the ends), but I’ve yet to hand-shell green peas. I buy them shelled, usually. Also a very pretty vegetable.
Well, if you don’t have access to the vines bearing the pods, you’d have to buy the pods in their packaged form (“snow peas”). And those pods can be too immature/flat. There’s a whole segment below petite “baby” peas sold frozen that never comes to market.
I’m lucky in my life to have seen pea production go from stationary viner sets (cut vines trucked in), to swathed vines winnowed and run into mobile viner sets, to the modern combines that do it all. In season, my dad would bring home a pickup bed full of vines, to be given to family and neighbors. Everyone would sit around with a bowl between their legs and talk shit as they shelled.
Oh, it’s good fun. Although never as tasty as frozen peas.
Oh, not to me. I don’t care for frozen peas at all, fresh in season are wholly different to me, although I’m mostly not so willing to expend the labor of shelling them.
My paternal grandmother lived in Bremerhaven. In season, we’d sit down in the backyard and peel those tiny brown shrimp (granat). Lots of work that resulted in very tasty, highly unattractive morsels.
I’m curious to learn your basis for this opinion.
Fortunate or not, I was involved in (too) many aspects of green pea research, agronomy, harvesting, transport and processing. I can understand why someone would prefer frozen for the convenience factor.
Frozen peas are frozen within a short number of hours of being picked. Our major producer (Birdseye) used to stress that, as a slogan, in TV advertising. Whereas fresh, in the pod, are likely to be several days old by the time I pick them off the supermarket shelf. Invariably the fresh are not as sweet, or tender, as the frozen
Do you process the paddles, or is that a different cactus?
You can process the paddles (of the prickly pear cactus), but I’m not that industrious.
And the needles/spines on the paddles are quite sharp.
What about (sugar) snap peas? You eat the whole thing; crispy pods and fat peas. Those are my favorite, although I do rely on growing them myself.
Regarding frozen peas, I don’t recall having eaten them lately, but I recently saw a recipe for a smashed pea mezze in a Yotam Ottolenghi Master Class I might try.
ETA That reminds me; fava beans are also pretty in the garden, and tasty from the kitchen.
Oh, those in the bowl are beautiful! So vibrant and fresh looking! Did you cook them at all, or are they raw and dressed with something? I seem to at least see sea salt…
Mosts harvests don’t even make it in the house! I think those were cooked briefly with a bit of butter and salt.
Didn’t your kaiseki meal had a gohan/shokuji course towards the end which is often used to “fill up” the guest ?
IIRC, there was a smallish bowl of rice, but not really an amount that anyone could fill up on.
peaches, with shades from yellow to deep red all on the same piece of fruit
