I've been a bit on tenterhooks lately, not wanting to miss the extraordinarily brief season for sour cherries. Thankfully, I found my puckery little treasures at the Greenmarket yesterday morning. This post might otherwise have been called "Tart Cherry Tantrum".
When I was nine years old, we moved from a suburban apartment building to a
suburban house on what seemed to us a princely quarter-acre of land.
One of the first things 
my dad did once we were actually in this house
was to go to a local tree nursery, where he purchased a small Montmorency
cherry tree and brought it home. It was then planted by all of us with no small ceremony in our front yard.
Sour cherries have special standing in my family. They're not just a foodstuff -- they're a part of our history. When my (somewhat ancient) father was a boy, he lived on a farm (actually an anarchist school colony. No, really) where there was a Montmorency cherry tree. He said that it was his favorite hideaway, and that when the sour, sour cherries were ripe, he would climb the tree with a favorite book, perch on a comfortable limb and read, eat sour cherries and spit out the pits.
We waited several years, but eventually began to harvest a small cherry crop which grew larger with each successive year. Eventually we needed a ladder, and baskets for what we thought of as "cherry day", pickers passing their full baskets to those who would wash them, pit them and begin to cook. Sour cherries, especially these fragile, bright red Montmorencys, go bad quickly. Even by the evening of the same day they're picked, they can begin to develop brown patches. Speed is of the essence here, so we turned our ripe provender into stores for both the near and the farther future as quickly as we could.
We made pies. One year I made five of them. I wish I were still blessed with the culinary courage I had then, when I was in high school and college. People loved those pies, so I must have been doing
something right. It's just that over the past several years, I've developed a pernicious fear-of-pie-crust syndrome. If you have the perfect crust recipe, let me know.
We made jam. It wouldn't jell because we only used half the amount of sugar called for, so we cooked it way down until it was a thick, luscious preserve of cherries. We liked it so much, we made it just that way every year.
We made "cold-pack" canned cherries in syrup. This was my father's baby, he who barely cooked at all, and he was extremely proud of them -- rightly so, for they were amazing on ice-cream and French toast.
And my mother made cold cherry soup, which she called Cherry Borscht. It's a cold, sweet-tart summer fruit soup in a luscious shade of pink, with whole, unpitted cherries bobbing up and down around the dollop of sour cream or crème fraîche which tops it off.
Oh to have that kind of wealth once more. I didn't really understand that it was wealth at the time, you see. We had such an abundance of cherries, and the problem was what to do with them all. Glorious indeed are gallons of cherries, free for the picking. This became even clearer yesterday at the Greenmarket, where a not-exactly-heaping, in fact not-particularly-full quart basket was going for about six bucks a pop. I thought about how many quarts I'd need just to make a few jars of jam. Unfortunately, I had to remind myself that paying the rent is important too, not just sour cherries and the site of memory.
I bought about 3 quarts, which was enough for a small pot of cherry soup, and a large sour-cherry streusel cake. They don't go very far, especially after stemming, washing,
trimming and pitting. But last night I was happy in that way that happens to city dwellers when they buy and prepare food that came directly from a small, reasonably local farm. It was like the companionable feeling I had recently while shelling peas. I enjoyed pitting cherries yesterday. It put me, even if only for a moment, into an alternate life taking place on some other time strand. A choice not taken, a life not lived, at least here and now: my farmwife self, getting ready to make preserves and pies, even if what I was actually making was cold cherry soup and cake. Through the action of working with this beautiful fruit, I could actually forget about the noisy street baking right outside our doors and windows, the ofttimes unmentionable scents and noises of inner city neighborhoods in summer, and allow my cherries to take me on a journey: first back to childhood, then to this fantasy of the alternate self. Nothing like a mini-vacation, provided courtesy of the farmer's market and the fresh produce to be had there.
Tonight G and I will share the cherry borscht and streusel 
cake at dinner with my father and brother and sister-in-law. Our first course will be the soup of cherries and our last course the dessert of cherries. What we have in between -- well, that's going to be up to the others. But our meal will be bookended by sour cherries so much like those we once grew and harvested and pitted and preserved together as a family. And somehow my mother, who in our long-ago kitchen pitted the cherries with a hairpin, just as she'd been taught, will be present too. Thus do we mend the strands of family and memory that during hectic days seem in danger of unravelling. For us, the tartness of Montmorency cherries is imbued with that power.
Hi Julie. The cherries are awesome right now. They're so big and fat and delicious. I've never had cherry borscht. It sounds really good. I always love how you write so lovingly about your mom. She must have been a dear.
Lea
Posted by: Lea | July 10, 2005 at 01:18 PM
Hi, Julie-
Speaking of fear of pie crust, I just read an article (in the Times?) that suggested topless pies and rebelling against the lattice! Something to think about.
Posted by: Nani | July 10, 2005 at 09:27 PM
Hi Lea -- I always love it when you "come for a visit" here...I've been thinking about you because we're coming out to the Bay Area in August...maybe we'll meet up!
Hey Nani,
Great to see you here. I'm fine with tarts, and sweet crusts that you push into a pan -- it's that flaky piecrust you have to roll that gives me anxiety attacks...
Folks should go take a look at your wonderful blog, too! As soon as I start a typelist of "not necessarily food-blogs" I'm going to blogroll you.
Posted by: Julie | July 11, 2005 at 08:39 AM
Farmer Dad actually tried to grow other produce on the old suburban homestead: two kinds of raspberries, I believe, plus some herbs and lettuce, right? And tomatoes. None of it worked out quite as well as the cherry tree, which required a lot of hard work to harvest.
Beautiful post. The soup and cake were marvelous, too.
Posted by: Joe C | July 11, 2005 at 09:55 AM
Oh, Julie. That streusel cake looks so luscious. I can taste the butter from here.
I thought of you on my Saturday market run, where I saw the first of the cherries. I told myself I wouldn't buy new cherries until the freezer cherries were gone, but...nahhh. ;)
I think I've had a soup much like your mother's cherry borscht at a Polish restaurant in Greenpoint. I'll bet I can still find the restaurant, if you're game...
Posted by: Bakerina | July 11, 2005 at 09:48 PM
Hey bro,
Two kinds of raspberries? I'm not sure I remember that. What was the difference? I know we had a big mulberry tree out back too, but we never did anything with the berries. Dad planted red currants,too and we tried alpine strawberries, but they never really took. Lots of fresh herbs, though. Mom also grew arugula from seed that she brought back from Italy -- and that was before anyone any of us knew had ever heard of arugula! All that on a suburban quarter-acre...
Posted by: Julie | July 11, 2005 at 11:10 PM
Hey you Bakerina you,
When were you at the market on Saturday? I was there earlyish, 8:30 - 9:30...
You know me, I'm always up for adventure. But I'll go you one better. If you're planning to be up at K A & L some time within the next 10 days, schedules willing, you can come 12 blocks further uptown and I'll serve you some cherry borscht from Mom's recipe. If you miss the 10-day mark, it'll be a while, since G and I take off on a cross-country odyssey...
Posted by: Julie | July 11, 2005 at 11:17 PM
Hi Julie, lovely story. They made me nostalgic for my childhood, even though we never had a cherry tree! And those recipes look scrumptious. Unfortunately I haven't seen any sour cherries for sale here, though I have been making quick work of the sweet variety lately!
Posted by: Melissa | July 12, 2005 at 09:58 AM
Julie, there's an a mention of sour cherries in tomorrows NY Times. I hope I can get my hands on some, I'd like to try making jam. The cherry soup looks awesome as does the cake!
Ernie
Posted by: Ernie | July 12, 2005 at 08:02 PM
Julie,
Sorry I missed this when you first posted...I was out of town...beautifully written...great finish
Posted by: mistergee | July 14, 2005 at 03:28 PM
Luscious post, Julie. Would you share your lovely mother's cherry borscht recipe?
Posted by: teri | July 16, 2005 at 03:04 PM
the cherry streusel cake looks wonderful. Would you please share the recipe?
Posted by: Anu | July 19, 2005 at 01:54 PM
Hey Melissa -- I haven't been blogging or blogreading much lately, but even in passing, your cherry-hazelnut cake looks amazing!
Ernie, I'm so glad we scored some cherries the other day. I'll post the borscht recipe...
Mistergee, Teri, Anu -- welcome and thanks for visiting! I've been a bit crazed lately, but I will be posting the recipes as soon as I can figure out the soup, since I do it by eye...
Posted by: Julie | July 19, 2005 at 02:12 PM
Here I am, a year later, reading this post.. from googling sour cherry recipes as hubby is pulling in the fruit from the orchard... we're awash in sour cherries today. Your "an alternate life taking place on some other time strand. A choice not taken, a life not lived, at least here and now: my farmwife self"... makes me chuckle... as I am into year 15 of Farm-Woman-In-Training.. and oft wonder about my city-living-self from my choice-not-taken...
also am not that familiar with blogs so don't know if anyone will see this comment... lots left to learn of internet life too ... I love anything with "cake" and "struesel" in the name so will probably be baking a cake as soon as the weather cools... for sure I'll have many cherries on hand for the months to come.
Posted by: Sue | July 13, 2006 at 03:04 PM
where can I buy these pie cherries?
Posted by: Kirk Smith | November 12, 2006 at 10:04 PM
Kirk, I don't know where you're located -- but here in the Northeastern U.S., fresh sour pie cherries have a short season that runs from late June to mid-July, usually. If you're looking for them at this time of year, you'd probably have to rely on canned or frozen cherries, and even those are hard to find in the "pie cherry" variety. You might do an online search to find venues in your area. I find it better to use seasonal fruit for pies, and wait till summer for my sour cherries -- or else freeze my own stash in season for use at other times during the year.
Posted by: Julie | November 13, 2006 at 09:17 AM
Ihave been searching the net trying to find sour cherries to make and old recipe for fresh sour cherries. Do you have any idea where I could fresh frozen sour cherries???
Posted by: Patricia Mariano | August 07, 2007 at 05:40 AM
Patricia, this question is difficult to answer since I don't know where you are. It's been my experience that many health food and "whole food" type stores carry sour cherries frozen without sugar. Are you in a place where there isn't a season for fresh sour cherries? In the Northeastern U.S., our season is just winding down. If I were at home rather than on vacation, I'd be tempted to freeze a couple of quarts, which keep beautifully. Give me more information, and maybe I can help you out.
Posted by: Julie | August 08, 2007 at 03:14 PM
Ah yes, grew up with 2 Montmorcey cherry trees, 1 Bing Cherry tree, and one Bartlett Pear treee. Little did we know the riches we had. In the Bay Area now, I can get cherries, but not those lovely little sour cherries (sigh).
Posted by: Debi | June 17, 2008 at 06:51 PM
My family has enjoyed my grandmother's Cherry Borscht recipe for years. We never met anyone else who had heard of it, though. We thought she made it up -converting a recipe for beet borscht (brought from the old country -Poland) to cherry borscht since she had a cherry tree in her yard in America. 'Our' cherry borscht looks just like yours. Do you know where your mother got her recipe from?
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