No recipes today, just some blushing Rainier Cherries. I know the season is over to get these priceless gems. I am just trying to push out all things summer from my draft 🙂
Just a thing before I move on with the cherries. We started our Travel Diary . We love traveling & had been wanting to keep a log since a long time… & it is finally here.
Rainier cherries are the prettiest, priciest, sweetest & the most luxurious of all cherries. Yellow to light orange in hue with the beautiful red blush on the outside, these are beauties like a ray of light during a summer sunset.The inside is creamy & is way sweeter than any other cherries; every bite full of mild delicate flavor.
“Rainier is a cultivar of cherry. It was created in 1952 at Washington State University by Harold Fogle. It is a cross between the Bing and Van cultivars….Rainiers are sweet cherries with creamy-yellow flesh. The cherries are very sensitive to temperature, wind, and rain..“(wiki)
Most of the Rainier cherries in USA are grown in Washington, some other states which grow these are Oregon, Idaho, Utah, California & NY. Our first encounter with these were in the cherry orchard in upstate New York in the Finger Lakes region. Trees full of these bright, sweet sunshine cherries, which hung from every branch in bunches & gleaming in the summer sunshine, lured us into stuffing ourselves straight from the trees, & then filling up the bags we got! We were hopping from one tree to another in child-like excitement.
The Rainier Cherries make their brief appearance early June & then quickly disappear by the end of July. At the end of July this year we were fortunate to grab the last few boxes from the Farmer’s Market at a ridiculously low price of 2 dollars a pound!!
So what did we do with these? Washed them & ate them right away :-).. all of them.
Selecting Rainier Cherries:
Select cherries which are plump, large, firm and have yellow and red color. Rainier cherries are known to have some skin discoloration, like brown spotting, which is ok.. the discoloration indicates the high sugar content in the fruit. Avoid cherries that are soft, with wrinkled skin; avoid the leaky, mushy and sticky ones – these are the signs of decay.
Storage:
“It is very important to store cherries unwashed in a sealed container in the coldest part of the refrigerator. Cherries lose more quality in one hour at 68° F than in 24 hours at 32° F.They will keep several weeks if stored properly.
Wash them only when you are ready to eat them. Cherries absorb water and soften. Water also spreads decay. If any cherries show signs of decay, be sure to throw them away as they will affect the other cherries.
Cherries are best when eaten within the first week after they are picked. If you don’t plan to use ripe cherries this soon, it is best to freeze them. To freeze cherries, wash and drain them dry, then spread them evenly over a cookie sheet or flat tray and freeze them. When frozen solid, transfer the cherries to a plastic bag. They’ll keep up to a year this way.” (Source)
You would be very lucky if you found any Rainier Cherries at this time of the year, but don’t give it a miss next time, for they are worth every penny & every bite. Sending the Cherries to Weekend Herb Blogging #199 hosted by Chris of Mele Cotte.
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Aquadaze of Served with Love tagged me 🙂 .. I have done a similar Tag a couple of weeks before.. Here are the answers!! Thanks!!
I love rainer cherries soma. an absolute favorite , I get them to try some dessert with them. but they are happily gobbled up before I can even try to think of something .
and u call my pictures gorgeous.. look at those above .. Im nowhere close to those wonders !
Every year, I don’t miss “Cherry picking” season, rainier is Best! The pict are gorgeous!
Beautiful! Soma. You have magic in your hands (camera) 🙂
I have seen cherry trees at a local farm here but have never gone cherry picking.
love cherries… and your picture is awesome.. makes me want to grab the cherries off the monitor 🙂
I would love to gobble these up 🙂
Awesome pictures , the cherries look beautiful !
gorgeous!
Lovely cherries and pics Soma. I visited ur travel blog…it’s just fantastic idea abt keeping a travel diary…:)
Soma I’d like to have these Rainier cherries here they’re so beautiful!!
Cheers,
Gera
That’s exactly what I would of done too! One of nature’s most perfect foods – fruit!
What a treat to watch those beautiful cherries. Awesome pictures Soma!
Excellent pictures:)
Ekdom kul er moton dekhte. 🙂
hi soma 🙂
Wow these look absolute beauties and thanks for the info packed post dear:)
lovely clicks
this is heavenly beautiful! love ye food photography!
cheers!
I will sure look out for them if i ever see them here.
Those are some pretty cherries, and some pretty pictures too. Lovely!
Beautiful pictures! I am so bad when it comes to cherries, I don’t get them very often because I never find enough ways to make them and I don’t like to eat them raw, they are one of the few fruits that I can’t eat raw 🙁
These are gorgeous cherries! I don’t think I’ve gotten Rainier Cherries before, will look for them.
expected to see the photographs of the colourful plants with ripe cherries you had from the orchard in the finger lake area
I looked for them, did not have pictures of the Rainier Cherries.. only the Bing & the Vans Red ones.
What pretty cherries! I’d love to taste them…
Cheers,
Rosa
We do get cherries like these here, but don’t think its the same variety. Beautiful pictures, Soma.
We get these here too, 250 gm for Rs 200 a pack!!!
Wow! Great picture!!!!
oh ya !! I wish I was with you in your trip….we visited the same place last Auguest and love it too..
your photography,as usual, is just awesome !!
Great info on the cherries!Gorgeous clicks as always!I never knew they had so much story behind..Whenever I came across, I used to ignore only bcuz of the price:DNeither did I know they taste different than the reg ones!:(:P
Gorgeous pictures! love the cluster of cherries!
pics have come out real gud,…:-)
Nice clicks…
I’m in Michigan, and we had tons at the farmers market but I never bought any… Now I’m wondering why I kept overlooking these! I guess I will be waiting until next summer 🙁
With all the cherries I eat, I am not sure why I haven’t eaten rainer cherries before. I have to fix this…
Thanks for a great post!
[…] Texas Soma from eCurry (http://www.ecurry.com/) inform is about Rainier Cherries […]
I love these too…too bad I can’t find them anywhere this time.
My ignorance overwhelms me again. I didn’t know such thing exist. Lovely and interesting post, thanks for sharing. If you wont mind I’d love to guide Foodista readers to your post. Just add the foodista widget to the end of this post so it will appear in the Foodista pages and it’s all set, Thanks!