Lapin Cherries

[Fat Guy]

I figure you people in the Pacific Northwest must know lots about cherries, so tell me: what's up with all these different types of cherries? I just noticed that all of a sudden every cherry around here just went from Bing to Lapin. Is this just the natural order of things? Educate this New Yorker, please, if you will.

[mamster]

Presumably they're called lapin cherries because they breed like rabbits.

Here's a good guide to cherry varieties that I found. The Lapin is a new variety from the late 80s; both Lambert and Bing come from 19th century Oregon; and the Rainier, probably the most popular and certainly the most delicious cherry at our markets, is a Bing-Van cross (I haven't seen the Vans for sale here and don't know if it's still a popular item).

I haven't seen the Lapin around here; I think the other three account for the vast majority of the cherries grown in Washington.

Laurie and I polished off an inordinate amount of cherries on the train back from Vancouver this weekend; now I must pop over to Canada to talk about that trip. But one hint is that we were trying to decide whether to try a particular restaurant, and then we found a testimonial by Steven Shaw on their website. (So much for THAT idea.)

[Blue Heron]

This is the first I've heard of Lapin cherries. It seems to be a new type of northwest cherry. Thanks for the link mamster.

According to my Northwest Bounty cookbook by Ingle & Kramis, the Northwest has the following varieties of cherries:

Bing

Rainier (those 2 make up 95% of the NW cherry crop)

as well as:

Lambert (later harvest, bold flavor)

Montmorency (best of pie cherries)

Black Republican

Black Tartarian

Royal Ann

Chinook

Burlat

Deacon

[mamster]

Don't ever give me a bowl of Black Republican cherries unless you want to hear a bunch of really bad J.C. Watts jokes.

[richie]

Last summer, I went to Seattle. We went to the locks, that place where the salmon travel through, and outside was a man offering free samples of cherries. I don't know which type they were - red/yellowish - but they were absolutely delicious. Mom and I walked around with purple-red stains on our clothing and hands after eating them.

Sorry to walk down memory lane there.

[col klink]

Those sound like Rainier cherries that, like BH mentioned, are very popular here in the NW. Thanks for the memories Richie, it reminded me that I'd like to go to the locks myself, yesterday the Times ran a picture of the current salmon runs through the locks and not only were they numerous, but large as well.

Mamster, I was just in Canada too! Batgrrrl and I visited her aunt in Lake Okanagan. I'm currently working on a write-up for the Canadian board. Neither Batgrrrl nor myself wanted to leave. It was four days of drinking wine, sitting in the sun at the beach and forgetting the world around us. I started trying to think of ways to change my career so I could live up there.