Strawberries are among the cream of cash crops in Cameron Highlands

THE local introduction of the red berry that goes so well with ice cream and melted chocolate, can be traced back to colonial days when homesick British army officers brought back strawberry cuttings to be planted at their hill station bungalows.

As the story goes, sometime in the 1950s, Kasimani Palliah, a southern Indian came to Malaya with a British unit. When the troops left, Kasimani stayed on, eking a living as a carpenter with Merlin Hotel (now Cameron Highlands Resort). To earn extra, he cultivated a vegetable plot of less than half a football field next to the building grounds after hours. Under his green thumb, the single plot expanded to three and with that, Kasimani supported his family of seven children.