A Visit to Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown, Rhode Island

Sweet Berry Farm is a local farm that grows many fruits such as apples. At the farm I was able to pick apples from the tree and make Apple Crisp myself. We then compared the Apple Crisp to an Apple Crisp made with canned apples. The real apples tasted much fresh and less sweet. We also learned the concept “farm to table.” By taking the product from the farm and changing it into food, the customer can get fresh food and the farm is able to gain more profit. My experience at the farm changed the way I look at apples. After I ate the apples right from the tree, apples from the school did not taste as good as they did before. It also gave me a basic idea of how restaurants can get fresh produce. —Sam Choi ’16

When I told anyone that I would be going to Sweet Berry Farm, I received groans and yelps of jealousy. My day student friends all told me to bring them something back, some even going so far as to grab my shoulders and jerk me in all directions until I promised to get the a souvenir. Even one of my teachers expressed some envy when I told her of my plans. Being from Washington, D.C and having never heard of Sweet Berry Farm, I was completely taken by people’s enthusiasm. I fed on the energy and soon, I couldn’t stop bouncing my legs and humming to myself all while still having no idea what to expect. Well, I knew that there would be apples, but apples are apples. How thrilling could apples be?

I learned that day that that was a stupid question. Apples are very exciting. Upon arrival, we got to browse the small store that Sweet Berry has and I quickly saw just how versatile apples could be. There was apple butter, so many different apple pastries, apple sauce, apple candy, meat with apples in it and much more. Of course, there was other stuff but I was just concerned with the apples. We were shortly introduced to the head chef of the Sweet Berry Farm and he took us to pick some apples and oh my god, these apples were amazing. There was an array of different apples with different degrees of sweetness and various textures. You could easily tell which apples you would have wanted in your apple pie at Thanksgiving. My favorite was the Honey Crisp apple, a yellow, sweet, flaky apple that tasted exactly as the name implies.

Later, we got to make our own apple crisp in the kitchen of Sweet Berry Farm. The chef thought it would be a fun little experiment to compare our fresh picked apples to some apples doused in syrup from a can. We used our picked apples and made one crisp and then we used the canned apples and made another crisp. Obviously, the fresh picked ones were better. If that wasn’t obvious to you even before I said it, please do yourself a favor and visit a farm and do the experiment on your own. Please.

I loved our trip to Sweet Berry Farm and I’m glad I went. Everyone there was extremely friendly and prepared to host us. We learned a lot and we got to show off a little bit of what we already had learned in our own individual experience. It was a great experience.–Kai Smith ’15