Simple Strawberry Syrup

Louis XIV, the Sun King, was an obsessive gardener who employed the landscape architect André Le Nôtre to transform the grounds of Versailles into the most formal and ambitious garden in history. Within those grounds, Louis also maintained the potager du roi — the royal kitchen garden — under the direction of Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, who produced fruits and vegetables of extraordinary quality for the royal table year-round, including strawberries in winter, forcing them under glass in what was one of the earliest examples of greenhouse cultivation. The royal confectioner, Sieur Massialot, recorded in his 1692 cookbook Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois the preparation of sirop de fraises — strawberry syrup — from the king's forced strawberries: the fruit simmered briefly with sugar and a measure of water, then strained through fine linen to produce a liquid of pure strawberry flavor, intensely sweet and acidic, that could be used to flavor drinks, ices, pastries, and sauces throughout the winter months when no fresh strawberry was available. Louis XIV drank it with water. The modern kitchen pours it over pancakes, stirs it into cocktails, and swirls it through yogurt. In all cases, the recipe is identical to Massialot's: three ingredients, brief heat, and patience.