It’s happened in Osaka, and happening in D.C. — the globally celebrated, nonpartisan event known as “Cherry Blossom Season” on which all can agree.
Here in North Central Massachusetts, it is “Forsythia Bud Season,” which, though joyous, has nowhere near the zhuzh of these famous fruits.
We’ll celebrate our own cherries blossoming much later in the season, but while cherries are on our mind, why not bake a pie?
And if you’re on board with getting all your ingredients from the central aisles of the grocery store, you can get a pie baked in the time it takes you to read the fine print on the legal notices in this newspaper.
As much as Americans would love to claim ownership of this delightful collation, the earliest mention of cherry pie goes back to Queen Elizabeth I. In the Medieval era, pie-baking was a high art, although mostly filled with meat and vegetables. (Or, famously, “four-and-twenty blackbirds.”)
Unfortunately, no amount of sleuthing in academic papers reveals what ER1 thought of the cherry pie, but we can only imagine that she must have loved it — as most of us do.
We are halfway between the traditional seasons for cherry pie (Washington’s Birthday and Independence Day), but since it consistently ranks in the top-five of flavors, it’s always in season.
Food is medicine
Years ago, I heard a piece of wisdom about food that has always stayed with me. I was holding a banner for Fitchburg Mayor Lisa Wong with her mother, nurse Christina Wong. It was a very cold and rainy Election Day. Christina had brought with her, as she always did during campaigns, a bag of green grapes. And as we shared them, she said, “People don’t understand that food is medicine too. Everything you put into your body is medicine.”
After a campaign season in which the daily consumption of coffee and baked goods and nightly consumption of pizza was greater than usual for me, her words made sense. While eating green grapes, we were consuming real food — simple sugar that wouldn’t overload our systems, with moisture that was refreshing.
From that point forward, I vowed to think “food is medicine.” This meant, if I was going to choose to eat food that was fast and cheap, I needed to be aware of having made that choice, and then compensating with healthy, whole food otherwise.
Food science may seem like a topic that’s always au courant, or fashionable, but the human experience with food dates back to the prehistoric era. Our ancient ancestors used fire for warmth, but also for cooking and smoking their food, which meant they had food even if a wooly mammoth was hard to come by. Later generations discovered that drying and salting food would preserve it, and by the time the Egyptians began their culture, yeast was understood, which meant bread and brewed liquids could be made — also foods that would keep.
Human’s fascination with so-called “junk” food really is a much more recent development, and authors such as Michael Pollan in numerous books makes the case that humans in the developed West are basically just slowly killing ourselves with food laden with preservatives, artificial ingredients and chemicals.
Good good at the right time
I recently came across a graphic online which presented a variety of claims regarding food that would “repair your body while you slept.” Well now, that sounded like a win-win! Who doesn’t like to sleep, and who doesn’t like to get something for nothing? I decided to investigate these assertions and see exactly how accurate they were.
Evidently, eating cottage cheese before bed rebuilds muscle all night. I found that a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition determined that if you consumed 30 grams of cottage cheese (a whole food protein) about 30 minutes before bed, the casein in this food could have a “positive effect on muscle quality, metabolism, and overall health.”
But to return to cherries, according to the Cleveland Clinic, in an article published in 2023 (“The Cherry On Top: 8 Health Benfits of Cherries”), these small fruits pack some big health benefits. Cherries contain phytonutrients (including anthocyanins and polyphenol flavenoids), which have antioxidant properties. Fresh cherries also contain Vitamin A (beta-carotene), Vitamins C and E. Cherries also contain Mealtonin, Serotonin and Tryptophan (an amino acid that can increase serotonin). All of these chemicals can help you sleep. And some athletes rely on tart cherries and cherry juice to help with muscles that are sore after a work-out. For those with arthritis and gout, eating cherries can “lower the pain and swelling of arthritis.”
Quick Cherry Pie ingredients: Canned cherry pie filling (21 oz) 1 Tablespoon corn starch 2 pie crusts (frozen or Jiffy) 1 teaspoon sugar 2 teaspoons milk
Directions: Mix corn starch into cherry pie filling, let sit for five minutes. Pour filling into pie crust, top with other crust, seal with fork, cut slits for ventilation. Brush with milk and sprinkle sugar evenly over the top. Bake at 350 degrees uncovered for 35 to 45 minutes until golden. Let rest to further thicken before serving.
Notes: The “lattice” style topping is traditional for cherry pie, but I’ve always found that fussy, and on the rare occasions I’ll make a pie crust mix by hand, the handling can make it brittle. So when you bring forward your pie, and happen to have know-it-alls at your table, who wish to remind you that “the ‘lattice’ style topping is traditional for cherry pie,” you have my permission to serve them last, and serve them a smaller piece.
Sally Cragin would love to read your family recipes and stories. Write to: [email protected].
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