Cherry Picking Information

Cherries are in season in like never before. With Oregon expecting a bumper crop of cherries this year; it's time to review a few cherry facts.

Cherries are members of the Prunus family, which includes apricots, plums and its various hybrids like pluots, peaches, nectarines and surprisingly almonds. Sometimes called 'stone fruits', this title references what we call the pit, not some coded language cluing you in the fruit has medicinal effects. Well not a good type of medicine, the pits of the Prunus family all carry a cyanide generating enzyme that is in small harmless in small amounts and is more notable in that they taste like bitter almonds.

World wide, there are 1200 varieties of cherries grown – Germany is the largest producer. Domestically, California, Michigan or Washington is #1 depending on how you tally – acreage, crop size or value of crop; Oregon ranks consistently fourth. Historically, the fruit has been classified in 4 groupings – Black, Dukes, Hearts and Sours. Which, as far taxonomy goes, is a little too much. You’ll almost never see a sweet & sour Duke available outside of France and the soft-fleshed Hearts have all but disappeared, relegated to gardens. Confusingly black cherries include the light-fleshed Rainiers and Sour Cherries claim the both light and dark skinned varieties.

It is easier to think of cherries as either sweet or sour. Sour cherries are thought of as a cherry you can bake with and just to muddy the waters of classification a little more, they are occasionally called pie cherries. Although they aren’t just for pies, the Morello cherry is used in black forest cake or it is distilled into kirschwasser, aka kirsch, aka Cherry Brandy.

Sweet cherries include the aforementioned Rainiers as well as the popular Bing variety. The Bing was discovered or cultivated in Eastern Oregon in the 1870s and legend has it bears the name of Chinese agricultural worker, Ah Bing. From its humble and improbable beginnings, currently 65% of all commercially grown cherries are the Bing variety. The fact that the Bing grew up to become such a major agricultural player should be enough to garner some sort of official recognition from its home state but Oregon has chosen instead to honor the pear as the state fruit and recognized the maraschino cherry as the official fruit of Oregon State University

Maraschino cherries aren’t really a variety of cherry. While there is marasca cherry grown in Italy and Croatia, many of which end up being preserved in alcohol, maraschino cherries are different. A product made by bleaching the light fleshed Royal Ann fruit, dying it usually red but sometimes green, preserving the cherry in and almond flavored simple syrup all so that one can top their ice cream sundae or add a modicum of indignity to the act of sipping an otherwise sophisticated Manhattan. The process was invented at Oregon State University (Go Beavers) in the first half of the 20th century.

Because cherries don’t ripen after they leave the tree, they can be refrigerated without altering the taste and texture of the berry. Cherries can be preserved in jars and they freeze easily and more importantly, thaw well – Rinse, pat dry, leave the pit in and spread out on a cookie sheet and freeze them solid before packing them into freezer bags - so they won’t congeal into a giant red mass. Or instead of preserving, you can bake with cherries this week, pie, cookies, muffins or the not as popular as it should be clafoutis – Some describe clafoutis (CLaFooTee) as a pancake but it is more akin to crepe batter that gets baked instead of sauteed – served warm and topped with powdered sugar, it is a summertime treat.

Today's post is pretty identical to the Facebook update from Portland Farmers Market. It is a bit of cheat, but I thought I would cross over this week and let readers know if they are interested they can keep track of what is happening week to week at Portland Farmers Market, you can do so by becoming a fan of Portland Farmers Market on Facebook. A chance for a little more saucyprose and a good way to keep an eye on one of the best run markets in the country.

Back next week and will actually be answering questions.