All Cherries are not Created Equal
You really get a sense of seasonality here in the Netherlands. For a month or two, the markets are awash in asparagus, then strawberries, and now cherries. Don't get me wrong, a lot of food culture here is very "American" in the sense of year-round availability of Chiquita bananas, and what I feel is even more availability of prepackaged mixes and spices and meal kits relative to raw ingredients.
But nonetheless, it is clear that cherry season is now. Just like with asparagus season which I wrote about here, and strawberry season, the market is full of produce sellers with piles and piles of cherries, and usually a few different piles at different price points. I decided to splurge on a half kilo of cherries (from the €3 pile, the other pile being €2.50). And then I sort of regretted it because the guy bagging my cherries had a cigarette in his mouth dangling over the bag, and later I saw that the supermarket C1000 had half kilo packages (a little over one pound) of cherries on sale for €1.49. I bought a pack of these to sort of average the cost out.
But when I got home and tried the two, I experienced a world of difference! The C1000 cherries are on the left. Small, and not so sweet. The ones from the Saturday Market are on the right. Such a deep color, and it seems like twice the meat as the other cherries. They are also just full of pure cherry flavor.
I guess it's exactly the same lesson as what I learned with the strawberries here - you really do get what you pay for.
