In Season: Cherries

Posted by Grace Kang, July 11, 2009 at 1:00 PM

There were cherries everywhere as I walked through the farmers' market the other day. This was following an enormous cherry delivery to the Serious Eats office, so I was a bit cherried out by then, but the gorgeous shades of red at the market were a siren call. The deep red of the Bings and the pink blush of the Rainiers just visually exploded.

Cherry season runs from late June through August in the Northeast, and this fruit is high in antioxidants and vitamin C. The Rainier variety, my favorite, are the sweetest type and contain 23 percent more sugar than any other cherry. I like fresh cherries, but I've included different preparations here (after the jump) in both sweet and savory applications. There's even a punch for those so inclined. My suggestion? Start off with some of the Cotillion Club Punch while you peruse our offerings.

Cherry Recipes

How do you enjoy your cherries?

5 Comments Favorite this! (3)

Tags: In Season, cherries, fruit

5 Comments:

I wish farmer's markets around here sold the tart pie cherries. Bings and Raniers are nice but I like to make cherry jam with the tart ones and they have a richness and depth of flavor lacking in the sweeter varieties.

therealchiffonade at 3:43PM on 07/11/09

We just went cherry picking last weekend and made this super-easy pie: http://highlowfooddrink.blogspot.com/2009/07/chocolate-almond-cherry-pie.html

HIGHLOWFOODDRINK at 5:11PM on 07/11/09

Just picked up about 4# yesterday!! Yummy!!

Have to watch out who you are buying from - i went to one place and all their cherries were wrinkled and infested with fruit flies. Blech!

SayWhat at 12:04PM on 07/12/09

Yeah! Cherry season is the best! When you look for sour cherries, be sure to get them with the stems on--they'll deteriorate much more slowly than cherries with their stems removed. There was a perfect example at the farmer's market in Chicago Saturday: a couple of booths had stemmed and unstemmed sour cherries right next to one another. The ones with stems looked bright red and great, and the ones without were noticeably browner and sort of shriveled.

Also, is it just me, or are cherry pitters a waste of time? The one time I used one, it was slower and much messier than just digging the pits out with a hairpin.

skizziks at 2:04PM on 07/13/09

Thanks for this recipe. I can't wait to try it as I love cherries. I live in Maryland and they are only available to us at an affordable price for a very short time. I just bought about 10 pounds of them and I need to freeze some of them.

What is the procedure? Thanks for you help!

Pedrocat at 3:57PM on 07/15/09

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