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  | June 3, 2007 |
Taste By Matthew Amster-Burton
Go With The GlowTranslucent, tart and transient, the sour cherry is a treat worth tracking
Seattle's a two-cherry town, right? We get the dark red, shirt-staining cherries like everyone else. And in June and July there are the mighty Rainier cherries, yellow with a reddish blush and exceptionally juicy. Until last summer, those were the only fresh cherries I'd ever met. Then I noticed that a couple of stands at our farmers market had put out some small, translucent, bright red cherries. "Montmorency sour pie cherries," said the sign, and they were more than $5 a pound. More, even, than the precious Rainiers. Because my family tends to prefer cobblers, crisps, buckles and grunts to pies, and because we didn't want to shell out $20 for a pie's worth of experimental cherries, my wife, Laurie, made a Cook's Illustrated recipe for sour cherry cobbler. She pitted the cherries and macerated them with sugar, red wine and cornstarch, then topped them with some fluffy homemade biscuits and baked until bubbling. We dug in with the anticipation that always accompanies trying a new and unusual fruit or vegetable: the belief that we may be onto something that we can be the first to tell our friends about. I carved through a biscuit with my spoon, brought up a few cherries and took a bite. "Well, we did it," I said. "We re-created canned cherry pie filling." If I were less stubborn, that would have been my last brush with fresh Montmorency cherries, especially since they appear in mid-June and are gone by early July. But because they are such a lovely fruit (how many other fruits are translucent?), and because my daughter, Iris, is so fond of fruit desserts, I bought another pound of Montmorencies, figuring that I had somehow missed the point. So there I was at the farmers market, holding a bag of these lovely fluorescent fruits, and without really thinking about it, I dug into the bag, pulled one off a stem and popped it into my mouth. Iris is naturally incapable of watching me eat something without demanding a taste, so I pitted a cherry and gave it to her. We had the same reaction. Well, Iris has never had canned cherry pie filling, but if she had, I'm sure she'd have been thinking, "This is the opposite of cherry pie filling." Yes, sour cherries are tart, but no more so than any number of other things people enjoy, like white wine or Mega Warheads, and the tartness is balanced by a concentrated cherry flavor. If there were such a thing as a fresh, artisanal cherry Life Saver, it would taste like this. Iris and I ate the whole pound of cherries plain over the next couple of days. Just because a fruit is best eaten raw doesn't mean it can't feature in a dessert, however. Think of strawberry shortcake. I knew Montmorencies and cream were going to get along, and they did: sour cherries made a great fresh fruit milkshake. There were other successes to come, over the course of which I spent $50 on cherries, still without making a single pie. We'd been enjoying rhubarb crumble all spring, so I tried a sour cherry crumble. Not bad, but cooking the cherries under a crust leaves them mushy and a little canned-tasting. So I made a David Lebovitz recipe for sour cherry tartlets with frangipane (almond paste). The recipe called for cherries and apricots, but I omitted the latter and tripled the former, and it was perfect — the cherries got a bit concentrated without becoming mushy. The tartlets are almost as good as the milkshakes; look for the recipe in Lebovitz's book, "Room For Dessert." I also made a cherry clafoutis, which is like a thick custardy pancake, and even though the cherries softened, they showed here almost as well as in the tartlets. A great clafoutis recipe can be found in John Thorne's "Outlaw Cook."
The most reliable vendor of sour cherries is Mair Farm-Taki in Wapato. They're found at Pike Place Market on Wednesdays and at the University District market on Saturdays. Farmer Katsumi Taki told me he has five sour cherry trees — and 50 sweet ones. Mair Farm-Taki sells flawless cherries ("No. 1's") and scuffed and dented ones ("No. 2's"); naturally, the former cost twice as much. For tartlets, spring for the 1's; for shakes or pies, factory seconds are thoroughly acceptable. Taki's cherries were gone by mid-July. Then, in August, I was at the University District market and saw beautiful Montmorencies at the Grouse Mountain Farm stand. Their farm is nestled in the foothills of the Cascades, and the higher elevation gives them a later sour cherry season — from early July to mid-August. Between Grouse Mountain and Mair-Taki, you'll be in pies, tarts and milkshakes for almost two months. Still, when you see sour cherries anywhere, snap them up. You may not get another chance until next summer, and besides, you need to persuade the farmers at neighboring stands to revive this neglected crop. Matthew Amster-Burton is a Seattle writer. He can be reached at matthew.reviews@gmail.com. Barry Wong is a Seattle-based freelance photographer. He can be reached at studio@barrywongphoto.com. Sour Cherry Shake Makes four 12-ounce shakes During the 50 weeks of the year that fresh Montmorency cherries aren't available, substitute two 24-ounce jars of Trader Joe's morello cherries, drained. Dark and juicy morellos are the other variety of sour cherry; I'd love to try them fresh, but I've never seen them for sale. 2 pounds fresh sour cherries, stemmed and pitted 1 quart vanilla ice cream Place the cherries in a blender (reserving a few for garnish) and blend into a smooth purée. Add the ice cream and continue to blend until smooth, rich and pink. Pour into four glasses, garnish with fresh cherries, and serve.
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