Continuing the Americana theme (USA! USA!), let’s talk about cherries.
Step 1: cherries. Step 2: throw off the yoke of a tyrannical monarch.
The cherry is a cousin to the nectarine and plum, and while it has about 1,000 different varieties, less than 10 are commercially produced. While most home cooks are used to canned cherries, there is really no substitute for fresh cherries when preparing a meal. Today, we’ll show a few items to get rid of the pit, and tasty recipes to follow after.
The popularity of fresh cherries has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, likely in part to emphasis on local, fresher foods. However, it can safely be assumed that George Washington wasn’t the first person angling for this delicious fruit.
Cherries can be traced back as far as 600 B.C. in China, where they were a delicacy reserved for high society. Their American origins can be traced beyond the Washington-tree-chopping-fable, to when Henry VIII brought them to England from Flanders. No, not Ned Flanders; Flanders, France to be exact. Cherries followed the English colonists to our shores in the 1600’s.
