Oh man.
I grew up in fruit country - Eastern WA state. We lived in the middle of 40acres of Red and Golden Delicious apples, with some Granny Smiths scattered about, there was a 10acre Bartlett pear block up towards the irrigation ditch, and that was just one orchard out of... dozens on our street. The guy across the street had 35acres of cherries, Mr. Druzak down the road had Italian plums, there was wild asparagus growing everywhere. My grandfather had 2.5 acres of hand-tended *old* Bing cherry trees that were just incredible. A pie cherry tree, two nectarine trees, two peach trees, and a massive raspberry thicket rounded out his place.
There was always canning and preserving going on. I still miss my grandmother's canned cherries... I think we had the last of them at a family dinner six years ago.
Yesterday I saw mediocre, small, half-ripe Bing cherries at the grocery store for $6/lb. I about sobbed.
|