As a fan of diverse food markets, I’ve found a lot of excellent cherry preserves out there, but they have been mostly imported brands.
At first I chalked it up to better jammaking overseas. Then I read the labels. All the good imported preserves were made with the morello variety of cherry, with the distinctive flavor we so liked: puckery and vivid, like idealized cherry candy.
Although morello cherries are largely unknown in the United States, the situation is fortunately changing.
All cultivated European sour cherries belong to the species Prunus cerasus, but there are two groupings: Morellos have dark red skin and blood-red flesh; amarelles have a bright hue that can only be called “cherry red” and yellow flesh.
As it turns out, the morello is the default cherry of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Balkans, Turkey, the Caucasus and Middle East. It is extensively cultivated in Central Europe, with the most famous orchards in Germany and Hungary.
The amarelle cherry rules in Western Europe, in particular a cultivar called Montmorency, so named for a village in the Champagne region of France.
Yet France does manage to have it both ways. The regions of Auvergne and Burgundy are famous for their morello cherries, called griottes in French. In fact, one of Burgundy’s most famous exports after wine is griottine, a conserve of morello cherries macerated in brandy.
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Bringing up Balatons
Historical records show that early American settlers tried to plant morello cherry trees in upstate New York and Massachusetts. An archaeological survey of Williamsburg, Va., unearthed jars of European morello cherry conserve that colonists were saving for a treat.
But when American fruit growers began planting European sour cherries in Michigan and other states with a suitable climate, they turned to the high-yielding Montmorency amarelle. What we call pie cherries are amarelles. These soft, yellow-fleshed cherries bruise and discolor easily once picked. They cannot be sold in glass jars as are German and Hungarian morellos, so they are canned or frozen, generally with a healthy shot of red dye.
Further, many find the flavor of many amarelle cherries lacking. Morello cherries, on the other hand, seem both sweeter and more astringent, with a darker fruitiness that Michigan State horticulturist Amy Iezzoni terms “plum flavors.”
So captivated was Iezzoni with morello cherries and so eager to introduce them to the United States that she traveled to Hungary in 1983.
“At that time, it was behind the Iron Curtain,” Iezzoni recalled with a laugh at her own audacity. “Commerce was impossible, and scientists just did not go over there.”
Yet Hungary was famous for growing Europe’s finest cherries. There, sweet and tart cherries had naturally crossed to produce the plumpest, juiciest and sweetest morellos.
Iezzoni worked out a profit-sharing agreement with the Communist government. It would grant her access, and she would trademark a Hungarian morello cultivar in a partnership and enlist Michigan State to market it to farmers. At a cherry festival in northern Hungary, she found her blue-ribbon morello, which she christened the Balaton after a famous lake in Hungary.
A Michigan welcome
Cherry growers at first experimented with a few trees here and there, gradually increasing their plantings once the Balatons began to get name recognition from good showings at fruit stands and farmers markets.
“The Balatons are the newest cherry in Michigan, but they’re definitely getting big,” said Patty Lanoue Stearns, author of the cookbook “Cherry Home Companion.”
Stearns lives in Traverse City, Mich., the self-proclaimed “cherry capital of the world.” She said that growers increasingly plant Balatons as a hedge against bad weather. If rain or frost harms the Montmorency crop, the later-ripening Balatons still have a shot.
In recipes, the frozen Balatons outperformed any jarred morello cherries, but both were leagues ahead of any other frozen or canned pie cherries. I’ve been making so much cherry crisp and cherry strudel that my Balatons finally ran out.
But I now know why even the old, soggy strudel I ate on vacation in Austria and Hungary a few years ago was so tasty.
It’s all about the cherries.
Cherry strudel
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Yield: 6 servings
Morello cherries want nothing more than this recipe, but any tart cherry will work. You’ll need more bread crumbs with frozen cherries, which cast off more juices than canned. This is a quick version using prepared phyllo rather than hand-stretched strudel dough. Panko, coarse Japanese bread crumbs, are available in many supermarkets.
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) plus 2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup panko (3/4 cup if using thawed frozen cherries)
3 sheets phyllo
2 1/2 cups pitted tart cherries, either jarred or canned and drained or frozen and thawed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
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3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a small skillet over medium heat until light brown and foamy. Transfer to a heatproof cup; let solids separate. Skim; carefully pour clarified butter into another small dish and set aside. Wipe out the pan; add remaining 2 tablespoons butter. When melted, add the bread crumbs; stir over medium heat until crumbs are golden brown.
2. Line a baking sheet with foil; cover with one layer of phyllo. Brush with clarified butter; top with a second sheet of phyllo. Repeat with third sheet; brush with butter. Place the crumbs in a 3-inch strip about 3 inches from the bottom lengthwise edge of the phyllo and 1 inch from the sides. Pile the cherries on the crumbs; set aside.
3. Mix the granulated sugar with the cinnamon, if using, in a small bowl; sprinkle over cherries. Fold the bottom up over the cherries. Fold the sides in to trap the edges. Fold the top down; tuck it under the bottom. Brush lavishly with butter.
4. Bake the streusel, rotating the baking sheet once, until golden, about 30 minutes (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). Dust with confectioners’ sugar while warm. Serve within 3-4 hours.
Nutrition information per serving:
250 calories, 44% of calories from fat, 12 g fat, 7 g saturated fat, 30 mg cholesterol, 33 g carbohydrates, 3 g protein, 194 mg sodium, 2 g fiber