It's generally accepted among scientists that Nanking cherries evolved to be smaller than regular cherries so that standard-size cherry pitters wouldn't work on them. The rationale is that the smaller size would cause humans to be less likely to collect them, and as a result, Nanking cherry seeds would be spread further and wider by birds and squirrels. (Don't bother looking that up, we only surveyed household scientists.)
Fortunately, humans are capable of evolving as well, and have now provably adapted to allow efficient predation on Nanking cherries. Evidence: a primitive modified cherry pitter tool. Fortunately for future archeologists, the development of the tool was captured in this equally primitive blog post.
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| We picked nearly a cup of these tasty-dactyls last week. |
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| But they're too small for our cherry pitter! |
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| Rummaging around in the garage, we found a washer that fits inside the cherry pitter, with a small enough inner diameter to hold the Nanking cherries but large enough to still let the plunger through. |
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| From the batch we collected, there were no survivors. |
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| We shall honor their passing with great reverence...and plenty of ice cream. (We also scattered the pits through the chicken pasture so the Nanking cherries, as a species, don't get too mad at us. Ahh, symbiosis!) |
How do you process Nanking (or other small) cherries?
I long for your new posts.
ReplyDeletei have a different cherry pitter that drops the pits into a container, while the fruit rolls on to a waiting bowl. the cherry rests on a rubber gasket with an x cut out of it. this is over a hole above the container. the plastic close on a bread bag will also slip into the slot and has a smaller opening--for smaller pits. probably other things could be goldburged to work as well.
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