Berry good times ahead: As Switzerland's U-pick season gets underway, now is the time to dream of strawberry fields forever. And then roll up your sleeves. (Food).(Brief Article)

I never really understood berry lust until I took my daughter on a U-pick excursion for the first time, She was three years old and had never tasted vine-ripened raspberries before, While the rest. of us dutifully filled our cardboard baskets, she stuffed berry after berry into her mouth, oblivious to thorns and bumblebees. At the end of the afternoon her face, hands and shirt were stained with the pinkish-reddish dye peculiar to raspberries, and her eyes were glazed over with bliss.

She didn't know she was breaking with a long-established honor system for berry picking. During berry season farms all over Switzerland open their fields to U-pick clients (the signs say "selbst pflucken" or "auto cueillette"). Berry farmers with large operations maintain …