Corduroy Orange

Hey there Corduroy–

I was wondering what exactly happens to maraschino cherries to make them maraschino? I’ve heard rumours that they get bleached so that they can be dyed to uniformity. Is that true? And also, is the ’sch’ in maraschino hard like it is in ’school’ or soft as in ‘Schlitz’?

Thanks!

Schirley Temple

Dear Skirley ,

Truth is, the cherries are bleached, but not with bleach and not in order to be able to dye them uniformly. It happens as a side effect of the preservation process. The cherries are soaked in a brine of sulfur dioxide (to keep them from rotting) and calcium salts to maintain their texture. Though the brine ensures that you won’t get a mushy, rotten cherry, it robs the fruit of not only its color, but also its flavor, thereby leaving the preserved fruit a bland template onto which any flavor and color combination could theoretically be imposed. The most popular, of course, is the bright red maraschino which is dyed with FD&C red #40 and flavored with benzaldehyde, a flavoring derived from almonds. Josh Sens writes for Salon that “Orange, yellow and pink maraschinos have all been produced for niche consumers. And a few years back, the Omni Hotel Group commissioned a cherry of red, white and blue.”

An alternative to artificially dyed cherries has been developed that uses radish skins and black carrots as a source of pigments[1, 2], but cherries of this type are neither well known nor widely available. Most cherries on the market follow the artificial route toward re-infusion.

Janet Raloff explains the steps on Science News Online, “To provide a year-round supply, cherry processors hold their fruit in vats of brine until needed. At that point, they wash out the preservative by soaking the cherries in running water for up to 6 hours. They boil the fruit in water for 15 minutes on as many as three separate occasions to remove any remaining sulfur dioxide residues. Then, the cherries are drained and gradually sweetened with syrup. Finally, the tint is added and the fruit bottled.” It sounds like a straight-forward process, but the gritty truth of what’s involved in processing such a large number of cherries is perhaps more accurately depicted by Lindsay Beyerstein on Majikthise, “One of my mom’s best friends worked in a Maraschino cherry plant in British Columbia. The bleached cherries were shipped from Europe in their brine. Arguably the worst job in the factory was skimming off the drowned rats on arrival. The rats had to come out before the sugar reinfusion could begin.”

Maraschino cherries have not always been manufactured in this manner. In fact, until 1940, any cherries that were prepared according to the above-described process would have to be labeled as “imitation maraschino cherries” according to FDA rules: “‘…maraschino cherries’ should be applied only to marasca cherries preserved in maraschino. This decision further described maraschino as a liqueur or cordial prepared by process of fermentation and distillation from the marasca cherry, a small variety of the European wild cherry indigenous to the Dalmatian Mountains. Products prepared from cherries of the Royal Anne type, artificially colored and flavored and put up in flavored sugar sirup might be labeled ‘Imitation Maraschino Cherries’ or, if there was no reference to ‘Maraschino,’ might be labeled to show that they are preserved cherries, artificially colored and flavored.” In 1939, though, the FDA decided that the imitation maraschinos had dwarfed the traditional variety in the marketplace to the point that “the term ‘Maraschino Cherries’ had come to mean to the consumer cherries which have been dyed red, impregnated with sugar and flavored with oil of bitter almonds or a similar flavor” and thus in March 1940, they ruled this process to be a true maraschino cherry.

The history of the cherry points to what I believe to be the proper pronunciation of the word: because the cherry is derived from the marasca cherry, I would recommend the hard-c pronunciation, “mara-skeeno.” A survey of Merriam-Webster Dictionaries supports this contention, as it was not until 1967 and the seventh edition of their Collegiate Dictionary that their lexicologists acknowledged a variation from this pronunciation, nor that the maraschino cherry might be anything other than a cherry preserved in liquer made from the marasca cherry. Be that as it may, the tradition of liqueur-preserved cherries is all but dead and either variant is listed in any modern dictionary; the soft (-sheeno) pronunciation is often listed first, reflecting a popular shift toward pronouncing it that way. So, really, either way is just fine by most people.

I looked around the internet for a method of making maraschino cherries at home according to the traditional method, but came up empty. Best I was able to come up with was a recipe for making cherry liqueur, in which you could then preserve more cherries (or, alternately, you could always buy some cherry liqueur and cut out that first step). I also found a brand of cherries “bathed in sweet brandy.”—not quite traditional marasca, but likely preferable to the mass-market variety. There are also several recipes available for making a home-canned version of the artificially colored and flavored cherry. I wonder if it might be possible to boil beets in simple syrup and use their natural colorant to make a darker-hued cherry at home? I’ll make note on my calendar to give it a whirl this summer during cherry season and report back with my results then.

Sources of info on naturally colored cherries:

[1] Janet Raloff for Science News Online “Unnaturally red cherries—naturally” (link provided in text of post): “Researchers at Oregon State University have begun testing scarlet pigments isolated from the skins of radishes, especially a cultivar known as Fuego…. Oregon State’s Ronald E. Wrolstad, a food chemist, decided to investigate the radish’s potential after reading about the acylated structure of the red pigment in their skins, which he suspected would make them resistant to color-altering chemical reactions.

“The trick has been getting enough pigment. It took 65 pounds of radishes to garner the first 0.3 ounce of purified pigment. Oregon State horticulturists are now trying to increase radish yields per acre or pigment yields per radish. Because the roots redden with maturity, harvesting them long after they become ripe can dramatically increase their pigment yield. But overripe radishes are unappetizing, except perhaps to livestock, whereas ripe radish flesh can be marketed for processed foods.

“In experiments, the radish pigments yield a brilliant Maraschino. However, Wrolstad notes, the color remains true for only about 6 months (somewhat longer if refrigerated), compared to years for Red No. 40. Still, he says, that should prove long enough for use in at least some products.”

[2] Josh Sens for Salon.com, “the Cherry on Top” (link provided in text of post). Regarding Wrolstad’s efforts, “A dye derived from radishes and black carrots proved to be the ticket, though maraschinos colored with that combination make up just a smidgen of national sales.”

Have a question about anything related to the world of food? Email me. I’ll research your query and try to post a reply in a timely manner.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Advice Column. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.