Cherries: tastes and benefits
The month of June is the best period to enjoy cherries: it’s right now that most of the wide variety is ripe and ready to be savoured, in a natural way or inside a tasty cake. Not only delicious, they are also healthy: cherries are in fact full of beneficial properties for our body.
Let’s find out together the variety of the tastiest cherries and their benefits!
Wide variety of cherries
The cherries diffused in Italy comprehend many types. There are two types of cherry-tree. The sweet one (called Prunus Avium) and the acid one (called Prunus Cerasus): naturally, the first one produces the sprinkles, the fruits that normally are consumed “au naturel”, the second one instead produces the more acrid ones, that is to say, sour cherries, marasca cherries, essentially employed in the preparation of jams, candied fruit, syrups and liquors.
Considering just sweet cherries, the fresh ones eaten during the first summer weeks, several types must be distinguished. First of all, first difference is between cuties and clingstones: the first ones are small with soft flesh, whereas the second ones are bigger and the pulp is harder.
Among the softest most appreciated cherries in our country, there are Bigarreaus: they are the most premature and are found on the market on the first half of May. More typical on the month of June, there are the Ferrovia cherries: mainly grown in Puglia, these are characterized by a shiny yellow peel and by a tight and crispy flesh.
The most appreciated Clingstone cherries in our Country are certainly the Vignola’s “Duroni neri” and Marca’s “Duroni”. Vignola’s cherries, tipically grown among the provinces of Bologna and Modena, are very valuable: quite big size, dark-coloured, almost black, the flesh is full-bodied and really sweet. Marca’s Durone cherries, instead, are characterized by a shiny red and yellow peel which is hard and crispy.
Properties of cherries
Cherries are not only delicious, but also contain nutritional properties, which are beneficial and are healthy for the human body. Rich of vitamin A and C, proteins and mineral salts, cherries have a low calorie content, but they make you feel full up quickly: a pair of handfuls of these sweet fruits can make a perfect snack even for low-calorie diets.
But not only that: cherries have in fact a strong antioxidant power, cleanse and diuretic properties. Another feature that makes these fruits special is the rich presence of melatonin, the substance that governs the sleeping-schedule in our body: it seems that eating a few cherries before going to bed facilitates the sleep and its quality.
About cherries
Several religions and folklores are related to cherries. Famous in the whole world is the Hanami, the Japanese tradition during which the wonderful flowering of cherry trees can be observed. The ritual usually consists on a prosperous picnic in the shade of branches full of delicate pink flowers, to be held during the period starting on beginning of April to middle of May (depending on the area of Japan).
In Italy there are some folk traditions too linked to cherries: one of the most famous is the one related to the miracle of San Gerard from Tintori, patron of Monza, represented traditionally holding a cherries twig in one hand. For which reason? Story goes that this saint used to pray in Monza’s Cathedral beyond the closing time. In a winter night, in order to convince the sextons to leave him in the rectory until late, he promised them a branch full of cherries as a gift for the next day: a real miracle, in the middle of winter! The next day, Saint Gerard truly showed up with the branch full of cherries. That is why then, even today, the twig of cherry tree is one of the symbols of the saint: the 6th of June, indeed, date in which the patron Saint of Monza is celebrated, the streets of the city fill up of benches rich of flavourful cherries.
