A Post About Cherries...In Which I'll Probably Gross You Out

Mmmmm...

Cherries.

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Besides the watermelon, is there any fruit more quintessentially summer than cherries? I was visiting my family this past week and I was very happy to learn there was a local orchard that was allowing common people to come in and glean their Bing cherries. My little sister and I jumped all over that, and in the course of two days and a total of about six hours we picked close to a hundred pounds of cherries, which we split between us.

These cherries came from a neglected orchard. My theory, and my sister agrees, is the orchard has been bought by developers, but because there are still empty lots surrounding the orchard they aren't going to the trouble of pulling the trees out until the land is needed. Oh well, we'll gladly take those cherries off their hands.

However, since the orchard is neglected we ran into a little problem.

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Mmmmm....?

Cherry maggots.

Ah, yes, the reason cherries are sprayed so heavily. Organic ways do exist to control them, but they're usually not the favored way amongst commercial orchards. And even organic sprays still kill beneficial insects. I estimate that 20-25% of the crop was infected with worms.

So, how to deal with worms? The usual answer is to soak the cherries, forcing the maggots to exit the fruit in an attempt to prevent drowning. The downside to this is your fruit will taste very watery and not very sweet. So, in my case since I don't see the point of eating a watered-down version of cherries, this isn't a viable option. I intend to make some fruit-only jam from part of the crop, and it's essential for the fruit to be as sweet as possible for that to work.

I could sort the cherries. I actually started doing that. It's mind-numbing work, even with the TV in the background. I just couldn't do it. Horrible. You have you check each cherry for a wormhole, it just takes too long in my opinion. Also, since it takes so long many of the non-wormy cherries would have gone bad by the end.

Well, I could cut each cherry open to pit it, and also evict it's resident. This is a slightly better option, but I pitted cherries like this a year or so ago and it's a tedious process. Throw two kids into the mix and it's a recipe for cherry-stained walls, if you catch my drift.

Well.

I could not care about the worms.

Yech.

Hmm, why yech?

Hello, MAGGOT! You know, those writhing, slimy, white things that eat rotting, putrid, dead flesh. But, well, these maggots have been eating sweet cherries. They're made of cherries. Heck, they're even the same texture as cherries.

But, ew, guts. Maggot guts. Seriously? Well, yeah, actually. I eat all sorts of guts. I eat liver, heart, tongue, and would be willing to eat sweetbreads (pancreas or thymus gland), tripe (stomach), and more. I eat clams and oysters whole, and that includes guts. So what makes this so different? And if you eat hot dogs, baloney, and other such food, there's a good chance you're eating organs as well.

But, can I honestly eat a bug? Chances are you already have. Insect parts and rodent hairs are commonly found in food. One estimate is that the average American consumes one to two pounds of insects a year. And I'm sure most of it isn't on purpose.

So, are the cherries even worth it? In situations such as this I like to think of my pioneer ancestors. What would they do if presented with fifty pounds of cherries? I'm sure they would jump all over that. Then they discover that about ten pounds of the cherries contain maggots. I'm thinking they would still eat the cherries, and probably wouldn't fuss too much about eating some worms.

In case you haven't gleaned (pun!) the information yet, I am consciously eating wormy cherries. If you're wondering, they still taste the same.

If you happen to have wormy cherries, here's what you can do with them. My little sister is planning on canning hers. My mom did this when they had a bad maggot year. When you open the jar to eat the cherries you just skim the worms off the top and then serve. No harm no foul.

If you aren't canning cherries this year, like me, then all the other options usually keep the worm inside. I'm not water bath canning because it's not my favorite thing to do. Instead I'm going to convert a large part of my cherries into jam and (shh!) use the inversion method to seal the jars. Throwing them into the blender before jamming should obliterate the worms so I don't have to see them and make a smooth jam. Yum.

Another way of cherry preservation is dehydration. Both of my dehydrators are full of whole pitted cherries. When they're done they'll make great snacks for the kids, and the worm will be invisible due to being dried out too. Bug jerky.

And our last method of saving our cherries is freezing after pitting. These cherries are specifically saved for smoothies. Since they'll be blended there's no chance of running into a whole worm.

But what's the point of saving all these cherries if I can't bring myself to eat them when the time comes? Making sure I can eat wormy cherries is a priority. To accomplish this task I've been eating my fresh cherries. Without checking for worms. I've learned that telling myself "There isn't a worm, there isn't a worm," doesn't work very well. There ARE worms, and it's just a matter of time until I ran into one. Instead I would chant in my head, "You're eating a worm, and that's okay. Just like oysters, just smaller." Ta-da! Mission accomplished, I'm now eating worms. Even The Hubby is on board with this, especially when he saw how much work it took to process the harvest even without worrying for worms.

Have I convinced you to eat wormy cherries? No? Don't worry, I won't be offering my cherry jam to anyone. I'll have plenty of blackberry jam later in the season and I love to share.

Have you decided that eating worms is no big deal? Then come on over and have some pie. Extra protein at no extra cost.

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This post has been shared on Simple Lives Thursday.