Sweet Cherries, Sour Cherries
Reader Mac asks how sweet cherries compare to sour cherries when they’re in pie form. Mac, that’s a loaded question for a guy who grew up so close to Traverse Bay. To me sour cherries are the only proper filling for a pie, tart, Danish or blintz, and the only cherry I’d consider for making jam. Sweet cherries are excellent just to eat as they are, but are a little one-dimensional as a baked-in filling.
What is it about sour cherries that make them superior for baking? If I had to boil it down to any one thing I’d say it’s the acidity, which gives a filling or a jam more complexity. Also the flesh of the most common sour cherry cultivar, the amarelle, is very tender and juicy, more so than that of a Bing or especially a Rainier cherry. As a result it breaks down quite a bit more when it’s cooked or baked, and that makes for a more tender and delectable eating experience. It’s the tender flesh of the sour cherry — which is almost plum-like — that makes it hard to transport.
Sour cherries have been around for thousands of years and grew right along side sweet varieties which originated in Eastern Europe and Asia. The Romans loved to cook sour cherries and spread them around their empire in antiquity, all the way up to Britain where they took off to say the least. Sour cherries were especially in vogue in England the 1600’s, which by no coincidence whatsoever is the time they landed in America where they’ve been prized ever since, at least in the areas where they grow well: Michigan (which produces about 90% of them), Utah and Washington.
Dear Joe,
If sour cherries are morellos, they are actually an other species (Prunus cerasus, a tetraploid) than the sweet cherries (Prunus avium, diploid).
We love them and around Brussels they are added to Geuze (a sour beer fermented with the natural tests) to produce Kriek (krieken is the local name for sour cherries). Both Geuze and Kriek are very nice.
Hope this is useful for your wonderful blog.
Kind regards,
Herman
Hello Herman!
Oh, if only we could get Morellos to grow well here in the States. We can’t so we use Montmorency amarelles (a different variety of Prunus cerasus, or so I understand). However there are some botanists working on the problem in Michigan, trying to develop a cultivar that will do well here. I hope they succeed since I love Morello cherries (I can only get them preserved). I have no problem with our American version of course, but variety is the spice of life is it not?
Thanks for the comment!
– Joe
I have to say, if someone puts a well-made slice of sweet cherry pie in front of me, I will consume it like a black hole.
Seewadimsayin’! 😉
– Joe
I’m unfortunately allergic to cherries of all kinds, but only if they’re raw (the cooking changes the shapes of the proteins so I don’t have any problems with them). So I can’t just eat the sweet cherries I like, and I don’t care for sour cherries. Any ideas of ways to cook sweet cherries that would still make them shine, or does the cooking change the taste so much that they’ll never be what I remember from before my allergy kicked in?
Hi Amanda!
Very interesting. You certainly can still make sweet cherry pie. There are several recipes for that available on the web. With most of them you usually just take away some of the sugar. Really you can do anything with a sweet cherry that you can do with a sour one. I just like sour ones better! 😉
Cheers,
– Joe
Generally, I agree with you that sour cherries are a must for cherry pie. However, I’ve now discovered an exception to the rule. My wife made a fabulous cherry pie using sweet cherries soaked in sour pomegranate syrup (product of Turkey). Yum!!
Sounds good to me, Victor! All recipes will be warmly received! 😉
– Joe