It's October, and from the back of the cupboard comes a jar of Nanking cherries packed in sugar back in June. Open the lid and there they are in red syrup, pitted but still perfectly round. Nanking cherries go soft within two days of picking, so they're hard to ship any distance. Most people who eat them pick them from their own yard or garden plot, eat what they can in season, and preserve the rest for later. With a season this short, how should you store them, and what should you serve them with?
The Ingredient: A Red Fruit 1 cm Across
Aengdu, as it's called in Korean, is the fruit of Prunus tomentosa and measures roughly 1 cm across. It grows on a different tree from the sweet cherry most English speakers picture when they hear "cherry," so in English it has a name of its own: the Nanking cherry. Native to China, Korea, and Japan, the shrub flowers white in April before its leaves appear, and its fruit ripens from late May to mid-June in the Northern Hemisphere.
The red color comes from anthocyanins. These pigments belong to a group of compounds called polyphenols, and lab studies have reported antioxidant activity in anthocyanins from red fruits. Studies testing Nanking cherries themselves in people are rare, though, so results from other red fruits can't simply be assumed to apply here. The fruit also contains vitamin C, organic acids that make it tart, and pectin, which helps it set when cooked down. As the fruit ripens, its acids drop and its sugars rise, so underripe cherries taste sour and fully ripe ones taste sweet.
The fruit chapter of the Donguibogam, the classic 17th-century Korean medical text, describes aengdu (櫻桃) as hot in nature and sweet in flavor. It adds that people of old prized it because it ripened ahead of other fruits. This comes from a centuries-old medical text, so read it separately from modern nutrition science.
The Method: Packed in Sugar to Last the Year
For keeping Nanking cherries a long time, packing them in sugar is the most practical choice. Layer pitted cherries with an equal weight of sugar and they'll keep for a full year. To pit them, don't cut them in half. Push the pit out with a chopstick instead. The fruit keeps its shape and is easier to use later. Sugar also softens the bite of underripe, still-sour cherries, so put those in the jar first.
You can also cook them down into jam. Nanking cherries contain pectin, so when you simmer them with sugar they set to a texture that spreads easily on toast. Heat does destroy vitamin C, though. If you want to hold on to it, use the no-cook sugar method or eat the fruit fresh.
Pairing: Milk and Yogurt
Nanking cherries aren't very tart, so they go well with milk or yogurt. Whole cherries will leave pits in the blender, so pit them first. Blend pitted cherries with plain yogurt and it turns a pretty pink without any food coloring. With no heat involved, less of the vitamin C is lost. Fully ripe, sweet fruit lets you use less sugar. Now that the season is over, try spooning some of June's preserved cherries, syrup and all, over a bowl of yogurt.
Pairing: Hwachae with Cold Water and Ice
Hwachae is a Korean summer drink made by floating fruit in cold water or honey water. For Nanking cherry hwachae, cold water and ice are all you need to draw out the fruit's color and tartness, so it has plenty of flavor even with only a little sugar. For extra tang, add a splash of omija tea, made by steeping the red berries of Schisandra chinensis (often called five-flavor berry). Its sourness builds on the cherries' own.
Frequent rain while the cherries are ripening makes the fruit split. Split cherries don't keep, so add them to hwachae or yogurt the day you pick them.
For Next June: Plant a Sapling in November
Nanking cherries rarely reach stores, so to eat them in season you need a shrub close by. Start with a young nursery plant. In the Northern Hemisphere, plant it in March–April or in November. The shrub is extremely cold-hardy and survives winters down to around −30°C, and it grows best at 15–25°C. If the soil drains well, it also tolerates dry ground. It stops growing at 2–3 m, so it fits in a corner of the yard or even a large container. It flowers in early April, though, and a late frost can shrink that year's crop. Where late frosts are common, watch nighttime temperatures around bloom time.
Today, choose a spot with well-drained soil for next month's Nanking cherry sapling.
Sources: Donguibogam, Fruit chapter (果部), entry on aengdu (櫻桃) · Nongsaro crop information, Rural Development Administration of Korea
