Cherries Galore

A long time ago, probably in the last millennium, someone thought it was a good idea to purchase a vat of maraschino cherries - a half-gallon of them to be exact. Well as it turns out, they were not so popular.




8 years after their expiration date they aren't looking so hot. There is a bit of brown goo on the right hand side (maybe you can see it if you squint really hard). I bravely opened the jar but found that the smell was less of a maraschino cherry smell than it was of a formalin smell - think high school dissection lab. Perhaps not surprising since the New York Times apparently once called them "The culinary equivalent of an embalmed corpse."

Rumor has it that maraschino cherries were made from Oregon cherries (Go Beavs!) since, to make a long story short, their cherries got all mushy in transportation and were considered sub-par. The allegedly delicious Italian maraschino cherries were taxed so highly no one bought them so now we're stuck with duds.

Maybe I'll stick with fresh cherries from now on.