How to tell when fruit is ripe

The best way to tell if strawberries are ripe, according to Quora user Cyndi Perlman Fink, is to give them a sniff. "If they smell like strawberries, buy them; they will taste divine. If they look gorgeous but have no smell, they will have no taste."

Why? When a fruit ripens, chemical reactions take place that break down its complex carbohydrates into simpler sugars, and these are what we smell when we walk by the produce isle, food scientist Shirley O. Corriher told Fine Cooking.