This week appears to be the height of berry and cherry season. At the market today there were sweet and sour cherries, strawberries, wild strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, all in great abundance. Many of them were displayed in handmade splint or willow baskets. Ukrainians enjoy the berries fresh but also turn them into preserves--a compote, or even into cherry. blueberry or strawberry varenyky. The Gourmanderie blogger tried making blueberry ones--you can find their recipe and photos of the result. here.
Enjoy the look of summer while I enjoy the taste of sun-warmed berries.
Above, my wild strawberries gently wrapped for me to carry home.
I have a question about those cherries. My neighbors told me that 90% of the cherries--at least in Crimea--have worms in them. Tiny worms you can't really see. I didn't quite believe them (why, I ask!) and was tempted to buy a kilo by the sweet old babushka selling them out of a bucket on the street (a practice that the Simferopol mayor is trying to ban and has been pretty successful at, unfortunately). Anyhow, I got the cherries home, chomped on a few, and decided to check out their theory. Maybe I should have done that BEFORE I chomped on them, because, sure enough, most of the cherries I checked had little (live) worms in them. So what do you all know about this? Is this common? Should I ignore those little worms (hard to do, I must say, now that I know about them) and consider them extra protein (uck!)? For now, I think my bag of cherries is going out to the field for compost. Oh, bummer....and they looked so good.
ReplyDeleteWell, I ate all my cherries with no ill effects! But a little googling tells me that the worms are fruit fly larvae, and appear in almost all cherry trees without spraying--even in the US. Must be we're either used to sprayed cherries or never noticed before. Here's a link to controlling pests from Washington State University Extension Service: http://bit.ly/bctE1K and I couldn't find anything that says that the worms will really be harmful to you. Enjoy with your eyes shut?
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