A Bowl of Cherries

Maraschino cherries were originally made from wild black marasca cherries, fermented with their own crushed pits to add an almond flavor. Today, Royal Annes and almond oil generally serve as substitutes.

John Heinerman contends that "nothing works better for gout than either raw sweet cherries (15 per day), cherry juice concentrate (1 tbsp. three times daily), or else a tea made of the stems." He adds that "these remedies also work well for arthritis." Gerard reports that the French used to gather the "darke bloudy" fruits "with their stalkes, and hang them up in their houses in bunches or handfulls against Winter, which the Physitions do give unto their patients in hot and burning fevers, being first steeped in a little warme water, that causeth them to swell and plumpe as full and fresh as whey they did grow upon the tree." ("I'm gong to guess that it was the cherries, rather than the patients which were plumped!)

Come to think of it, most of those bowls mentioned above include a few rotten and/or not fully ripe (and thus bitter) cherries. So comparing them to life may not be so far off after all. Your own happiness or lack of it will probably depend on whether you choose to recall the bad fruits or the good ones!

First photo is courtesy of the Washington State Fruit Commission at http://www.nwcherries.com . Image is from Carl Lindman's Bilder ur Nordens Flora, courtesy of the Texas Vascular Plant Image Gallery at http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/gallery . Final photo is by author, all rights reserved, and may not be copied or reproduced without permission.

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