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Pie cherries fresh picked in old Davidson. (David Boraks/DavidsonNews.net)

By SHELLEY RIGGER
DavidsonNews.net

One of my fondest childhood memories is from summer 1979, when the 17-year locusts made their appearance in northern Maryland. The locusts (technically cicadas) were such easy pickings that for one glorious season, the big songbirds – cowbirds, catbirds, robins and mockingbirds – left our pie cherry tree alone, and I was able to harvest bucket after bucket of heavy crimson fruit.

Not that you’d want to eat pie cherries right off the tree. The pie cherry is very tart – sour, really. It’s beautiful to look at – bright red skin, golden flesh – and has a distinctive flavor, nothing like the “eating cherries” with their purple-black skin and burgundy pulp. But in a pie, flavored with plenty of sugar and a few drops of almond extract, tart cherries are sublime.

If you don’t have a tree of your own, they’re nearly impossible to find. The only time I’ve seen tart cherries for sale was last weekend at the Davidson Farmer’s Market ^[2], although I’ve heard of orchards in the mountains that have them. I suppose few people grow them because few people make fresh fruit pies. But even if you have a tree of your own, they’re hard to get off the tree. I once watched my father ride a falling ladder out of the top of our cherry tree, right into the Jerusalem artichokes.

[Mary Jane Leach, manager of the Davidson Farmers Market, reports that Barbee Farms and Twin Oaks Farm both have had cherries in recent weeks. Another good place to find them is at farms where you can pick yourself. One popular spot is Levering Orchard ^[3] in Ararat, Va., just north of the N.C. line, well worth a day trip.]

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Sour cherries on the tree in Davidson. (David Boraks/DavidsonNews.net)

Once as I was picking at the top of the tree, legs wedged in, arms stretching, buckets dangling from both elbows, a fledgling robin dropped onto my head. I let go of everything and plummeted through the branches like Winnie-the-Pooh coming out of the honey tree, losing all my cherries en route to the ground. The bird landed next to me and we stared at each other in terror for a few seconds before I ran shrieking to the house. But I couldn’t bear to leave those cherries on the ground, even with the horrifying memory of tiny claws scrabbling in my hair fresh in my mind. I ended up cowering under an umbrella while I recovered my harvest.

My parents in Maryland have had at least one pie cherry tree growing as long as I can remember. The one I will pick from later this summer is a few generations removed from the one I spent so much time in during the locust year, but if I time my visit just right, I can get a wonderful yield. Last summer I got several gallon bags for my freezer, plus fresh pies during the visit. Dad and I inspected the tree earlier this spring; it’s looking good for July.

When my mother-in-law, Betty Boraks, passed away in 2001 my parents gave us a pie cherry tree to plant in her memory. It’s a Montmorency – the same variety my father grows. We planted it in the backyard of a house in Davidson we no longer own. We meant to dig it up before we moved, but we were timid, and before we knew it, it belonged to someone else. The house is changing occupants again, and last weekend, acting on a tip from a neighbor, we sneaked in to pick “Grandma Boraks’s” cherries. The tree is only about 7 years old, and planted in shade, but it gave up two good pies’ worth of fruit in a few minutes’ picking.

I think it’s time to plant one, or maybe more than one, on South Street.

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Cherry pie, with sour cherries.

CHERRY PIE

Pie crust
About 4 cups of pitted sour cherries
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar
A few drops of almond extract or 2 tbsp kirsch
(About 2 tbsp. tapioca powder or corn starch, if needed)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Fill your unbaked pie shell with pitted tart cherries. You can measure them by putting them in the empty pie dish, enough to mostly fill it, then dump them into a bowl to mix with sugar.

It’ll take at least a cup of sugar, maybe more – keep adding it until it’s to your taste. Add a few drops (no more than a quarter teaspoon) of almond extract. (Kirsch liqueur may be substituted.)

If the cherries are very juicy, or have been frozen, you probably should add a little thickener – corn starch or tapioca powder work.

Dot the filling with butter before you put on the top crust.

HINT: Put something under the pie pan in the oven (aluminum foil or a cookie sheet), as it is common for the cherry juice to boil out and make a big mess.

Bake 10 minutes at 450, then reduce head to 350 and bake another 40 minutes, or until the top is deliciously brown.

(Around our house, vanilla ice cream is required when serving.)

Shelley Rigger lives on South Street and is a board member of the Davidson Farmers Market ^[2]. She also is the Brown Professor East Asian Studies at Davidson College.