Wild cherries

These are the wild cherries Hideaki and I picked at our local park this morning. I had assumed they were inedible (in fact last month I had tried a red one out of curiosity and it was horribly sour), but on my morning walk yesterday the park was full of people picking them. One little kid with his hands and mouth stained purple seemed to be proof that the cherries were indeed edible, but I still wasn't sure. So I worked up some courage and struck up a conversation with two ladies each carrying a few plastic bags bulging with the fruit. They were very happy to tell me what to do with the cherries (make juice, make liqueur, eat them as is) assured me that I'd be a great cherry picker because of my height, and even gave me a cherry to try.

I popped the tiny fruit into my mouth and the juice exploded on my tongue, revealing a sweet cherry flavour with a bit of sourness and a tiny hint of bitterness. Not as good as proper full-size black cherries, but not bad at all- especially considering the price.

The first thing that popped into my mind when I tried it was "Trail!". Trail is where my Dad grew up, in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. The few visits I've made there have always been in the summer, when several types of berries and cherries are in season. I guess this wild cherry tasted a lot like one I'd tried in Dad's hometown. Funny how the brain remembers flavours like that.

So on my way home from the park I stopped at each cherry tree and grabbed a handful of cherries to munch on, thinking how lucky I was to live near a free all-you-can-eat fruit smorgasbord.

This morning I came to the park as usual, only this time not to exercise but to pick. I brought some bags, a plastic tub, and my husband, who was just as excited to pick free cherries as I was.

After about half an hour I stopped eating them and concentrated on filling my tub. But not because I was full or especially keen to finish the job. Nope, what stopped me eating was the observation that I wasn't the only one enjoying the cherries- several cherries had little tiny worms poking out of them. I'll spare you the gory details, but once I had taken the cherries home and washed them I discovered that virtually all the cherries were pretty much crawling with worms.

Yuck! That ruled out eating the cherries straight, or making juice or jam. I decided the only thing to do was to make liqueur- any bugs I'd failed to remove would simply be pickled, and a good straining would ensure that nothing icky was left in the final product.

This is the beginnings of my cherry liqueur. It's just alcohol (the "white liqueur" widely available this time of year in Japan), the cherries (washed and carefully debugged) and rock sugar. I'm going to let it steep for a few months and then see how it tastes.

I hope it turns out as nicely as last year's strawberry liqueur.

Comments

[carlyn]

Amy;
Interesting cherry story....I am anxious to hear about the results of your experiment. What do most of the Japanese women make with the bounty ?

[Absolutely Tokyo!]

Ewwwww! Can't stand the idea of eating worms! How gross! I thought you were going to say something about snakes eating the cherries. I used to go out picking blackberries all around Seattle until one time I happened to notice several (small) snakes that seemed to be enjoying them. It was a little shocking, although actually I'd rather put up with the snakes than the worms! Yuck is right!!!

The new picture of you is really cute!
AT

[Lea]

I am pretty positive I would have aobsolutely spazzed out at the sight of tiny worms in any cherry I was eating!!!

[Jamie]

we actually have a sour cherry tree in our backyard. I should probably get out there and start picking them now because I've learned that if I pick early and often then I can run in, wash and pit them and make some nice muffins without a worm invasion. but wait just one day (if only I knew what day it was?) too long and the worms have moved in. I haven't actually experienced the worms myself but I felt TERRIBLE when I told a friend she could pick my cherries and she reported later that she got them home and found them full of the yucky wigglers!

[Amy]

Carlyn,
I think they make juice, jam and liqueur like this.

Actually, the worms didn't bother me very much. I mean, once I'd discovered them I certainly stopped eating the cherries, but I wasn't all that grossed out. After eating inago (grasshoppers) in Nagano this spring, I guess I've toughened up a bit!
(here's a link to the inago story: http://www.japan-hopper.com/2006/05/02_16140.php