What Else Can We Maraschino?

My recent post on the sequencing of the Maraschino cherry got me to thinking, how do they make the damn things in the first place?  Can the technology be applied to other foods, like eggplant or cucumbers?

Then this morning I made lunch for my niece and put in a bag of cherries, real ones, like the ones grown on trees.  She said she didn't really like cherries, that she had one once on top of ice cream and it wasn't good.  In her continued ability to shock me to death I realized that she had mistaken the Maraschino cherry for a legitimate fruit.  Ugh.

Then I remember that the curvaceous Pink Lady in Grease was Marty Maraschino.  She was portrayed by actress Dinah Manhoff that would later go on to star as Kathy Cumberland in Mork and Mindy.  What was my strange fascination with the Maraschino Cherry?

Believe it or not, there's good

story behind this thing.

Curious about the process of Maraschinoification, I turned to the interwebs for guidance.  Turns out these things were restricted to royalty, as they were basically cherries pickled in Maraschino liqueur.  They were originally marasca cherries, a specific kind of sour cherry grown in Croatia.

Throughout the 1900's they gained popularity in drinks and as an ice cream accessory.

Now it gets hard to believe.  It turns out that the modern Maraschino cherry was developed in Oregon at Oregon State University.  I have many friends and colleagues out there, so this starts to hit close to home!

Turns out that in the early 1900's Oregon was producing tons of cherries, but they were a variety with marginal post-harvest quality.  In short, they turned to mush when you shipped them.  At the time the main consumers could purchase Italian cherries in brine and didn't find the Oregon cherries appealing.

Enter Earnest Weigand, a horticulturalist that dabbled in canning and preserving food.  He came to Corvallis in 1919, at the time Oregon Agricultural College.  The college president's brother-in-law was a cherry grower and connected him to Weigand.  Weigand then spends the next six years (1925-1931) figuring out how to pickle cherries.  The breakthrough was the addition of calcium chloride, making them easily preservable.  Then, a tariff imposed on Italian imports helped the Maraschino cherry industry in Oregon emerge.

Today OSU features Weigand Hall and a course Maraschino Cherry 102 that details the history and production of this foodstuff.  Oregon also is the cradle of contemporary Maraschino cherry production.

How do they make them?   Fresh-picked cherries are placed in a brining solution of soduim metabisulfate, citric acid and calcium chloride. Brining removes the color and dehydrates the cells.  The cherries are then sorted and pitted mechanically.  They are rinsed to remove the brining solution and then soaked in high fructose corn syrup and red food color.  The final packing placed them into jars with the syrup, some preservatives (potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate) and almond flavor are added.  That is how you make a maraschino cherry.

And they are as nutritious as shoe leather!

There is apparently a book or article on the subject, Science, Service and Specialized Agriculture: The Re-Invention of the Maraschino Cherry,  by J.Christopher Jolly.  I'll do some digging and follow up.

I'm also going to try to make Maraschino grapes, cucumbers and celery.  We'll see how that goes.