“Life IS Just a Bowl of Cherries” for a Sweet Summer

(Gerry furth-Sides)  We love dried tart cherries so much we almost forgot the decadent taste of fresh, sweet cherries.  (for our sour cherry post, please see //localfoodeater.com/tag/montmorency-cherries/).  This summer, thanks to Melissa’s Produce, we re-discovered Bing Cherries, mouthwatering with a rich flavor.  We happily ate them from breakfast to supper. So soft to the touch, plump and juicy, they are perfect straight from a bowl with their fun stems and make any dish more festive.  Life is a bowl of cherries with sweet Bings! (hear the classic song by Doris Day via the link below!)

The story of sweet and tart cherries makes them even more delicious. Robert Schueller, Melissa’s Produce Marketing Director,  told us that , “There are 2 types of Cherries:  sweet and sour.  The Bing and Rainer are the most common varieties, distributed fresh to 99% of the market.   However, only less then 1% go to market fresh because  most don’t know they are “sour,” or “cooking” cherries, with entire cherry crops typically going straight  into the processing industry to be used for pie filling, bakery, dried, canning, and the like.  These need to be cooked to be sweet in taste — think of sour cherries like the seville for oranges.  He added, “Washington is best known for the Bing sweet cherries in the United States,  though they are also known for Rainier cherries too!”  (see their relationship story below!)

Fresh cherries work in every dish from oatmeal in the morning to a salad at lunch and at dinner, a sumptuous, pork loin sauce with cherries and wine, then a fresh cherry galette for dessert.  Below a succulent pork loin is served, summer style, with corn on the cob. There are approximately 65 cherries to a pound, so one bag covers the three dishes, plus snacks.

And eat sweet cherries with abandon, knowing they are also healthy.  They are found to  stabilize blood sugar, strengthen the immune system and help fight diseases like gout and arthritis.  They are also low in calories (90 calories to a cup) and a good source of potassium and vitamin C.  Cherries are also a great source of anthocyanins, bioactive compounds that provide antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, cardiovascular and other benefits. Research shows that melatonin, catechins and flavanals in cherries contribute to the fruit’s healthfulness, too.

An ideal growing location is also a fun fact in itself:  cherries do best on the 45th Parallel, a line of latitude halfway to the Equator and halfway to the North Pole with a temperate climate. There are more than 1,000 varieties of cherries in the United States, but fewer than 10 are produced commercially.  In Northwestern Michigan, where Traverse City is famous for cherry festivals (think the little pinkie of the mitt-shaped state),  the surrounding Great Lakes and rolling hills help create a surprising temperate climate pocket, as does the Mr. Rainier area in Washington state.

More startling, fascinating facts:  Along with being sumptuous in color, taste, texture, cherries are extra special because they have the shortest period between flower blossom and harvest of any tree fruit (60-75 days).  Italian history leads us to Roman general Lucullus as introducing cherries to Europe around 74 BC, and also committing suicide when he realized he was running out of cherries!  So much for the short season.

Cherries are not unsurprisingly related to plums and more distantly to peaches and nectarines, but had a much different journey to the American table.    Cherries migrated with the colonists from Europe in the 1600’s.  Henderson Lewelling traveled from Iowa to western Oregon by ox cart in 1847.  He brought with him the first cherry trees planted in the Northwest.   Seth Lewelling, Henderson’s younger brother, was responsible for the creation of the most famous sweet cherry variety grown today, the Bing.  The cherry is named after Seth Lewelling’s Manchurian orchard foreman and friend, Bing, who was over 7 feet tall.

The Rainier cherry is celebrated on July ll.  We celebrated with Bing cherries because the Rainier variety has a little “bit of the Bing in it” since it was created in 1952 by cross-breeding the Bing and Van varieties.   This Rainier was developed by Dr. Harold W. Fogle of Washington State University in Prosser, Washington.  And, yes, it was named after Washington State’s famous volcanic peak,  also famous for mountain climbing, where my dad was filmed teaching.   For him, as a cherry and mountain lover, Doris Day’s song (below) would fit his feelings, too.  For more fun, see Brooke Shields tying a cherry stem in her mouth in the link below!