Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Cherries
The roadside of modern agriculture is littered with the wreckage of once fabulous fruits that
have been corrupted beyond recognition by the quest for commercial advantage. A rainbow
of varieties that were treasured each in their own time and their own way has now been
narrowed to only one or two choices, selected primarily not because of their eating quality,
but because they happen to ripen at a specific time or ship better than the others. Judging
strictly by the numbers, you could say that is exactly what has happened with cherries.
In the late 1900s, fruit scholar U. P. Hedrick filled an entire beautiful book with the
hundreds of varieties grown just in the state of New York (more than two hundred kinds
of sour cherries alone). Today the sweet cherry industry is dominated by only one variety.
And as for finding fresh sour cherries, you might as well forget it. Even though more than
240 million pounds of sour cherries are harvested in an average year (almost all of them in
Michigan), less than 1 million pounds are sold fresh; the rest are canned.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the cherry apocalypse. The one variety that
ended up being chosen above all others is actually pretty darned good. Bing cherries from
Oregon, Washington and California make up something like 65 percent of the fresh sweet
cherry market (no other variety accounts for more than 10 percent). And at its best, the Bing
is about as good as any cherry variety that has ever been grown - crisp on the outside, with a
melting center that saves it from being crunchy; dark and sweet, with a nice tart backbone.
Not only is the Bing delicious, it is also a legitimate antique. The variety was found in 1875
on the farm of eastern Oregon agricultural pioneer Seth Lewelling - as legend would have
it, by a Chinese workman named Ali Bing.
In general, cherry varieties are lumped into four large categories: Bigarreaux (or Black
cherries), Dukes, Hearts and Sours. Hearts and Dukes are exceedingly soft, and because
they can't be shipped, they have largely disappeared commercially. Bigarreaux, or Blacks,
dominate the fresh market. This family includes not only the dark red Bing but also the clas-
sic Royal Ann and its modern imitator Rainier, which blush from gold to crimson. (Royal
Ann and Rainier cherries are the ones that traditionally have been dyed and preserved for
maraschino cherries.)
