Le Temps des Cerises

Last week, driving back up to Paris from Provence, I stopped outside the town of Nyons at a sign proclaiming Cerises--Vente directe à la ferme (Cherries--on sale straight from the farm). Bumping slowly down a dirt lane flanked by cherry orchards, I saw a group of people perched on ladders. Special baskets (la charmotte à cerises) were slung from their necks which left their hands free to pluck the dark, jewel-like fruits hanging in thick clusters from the branches. Although the entire weekend had been rainy in Provence, here in the blessed climate of Nyons, the sun was shining gaily. Weather like this makes Nyons a cradle of stone fruit production--especially apricots, cherries, and the renowned Nyons olives.

I pulled up before the open door of a barn, where flats of gleaming dark Burlat cherries were arranged on a table. I asked the young girl tending them if I could taste one. "Mais oui! C'est fait pour ça!" she exclaimed, smiling. Of course! They're meant to be tasted!

Exactly. Cherries are meant not only to be tasted, but gluttonized. As in:  place a big sack of cherries on your knees in the car, roll down the window, and pop them into your mouth nonstop, spitting the seeds neatly out the window, preferably not when another vehicle is passing by. Oh, the joy of gorging yourself on cherries for the first time of the year! Was any fruit ever more delicious? Sweet with just a hint of tartness, darkly flavorful with just a trace of bitter almond, cracking between your teeth to release a burst of juice--the cherry is the bonbon of nature. Just the perfect size to make a mouthful. Candy creators must have studied the cherry to figure out how to make their products more seductive. Tasting that first cherry, I felt overcome by the mindless greed of a ravenous blackbird in an orchard.

Hmmm. Buying cherries at the orchard. A long-buried memory of dark, sweet cherries floated to the surface of my brain.    I was 4 years old and living in Switzerland with my grandmother and mother. We had visited a cherry orchard and bought a big basket of the fruit. I could  see in my mind's eye the (for me at the time) towering cherry trees, and the ladders with pickers atop them. My grandmother told me I was not to touch the gleaming fruits hanging tantalizingly within my reach.  But as compensation, she showed me how duos of cherries joined at their stems could be hung over my ears as the baubliest earrings ever.

My grown-up, Nyons cherries were not only wonderfully flavorful (so often they can be bland), but at 3 euro a kilo, they were at exactly one-twelfth the price of the abnormally huge but tasteless cherries offered for sale by my Paris greengrocer just before I left for Provence. (That's right, one-twelfth. Those Paris cherries were priced at 18 euro the half-kilo.) Of course, that same greengrocer had had cherries for sale all through the wintertime--cherries that had been flown in from Chile, and none of which I ever bought.

Like most people trying to consume more responsibly, I try to buy food from as close to home as possible. But carbon footprint issues aside, what is the charm of cherries if they're available all year-round? Cherries simply wouldn't taste as good if you ate them all the time. Nor would apricots, or peaches, wild mushrooms or game birds, or strawberries... My culinary and gustatory year unfurls in a predictable progression of transient tastes--flavors that are all the more wonderful for being seasonal. The produce of the season is for me an intrinsic part of a quotidian celebration of life. When the first porcini mushrooms arrive in the markets, I know that summer is coming to an end and fall isn't far behind. And I welcome the change:  cooler weather, that industrious back-to-school (or work) feeling.   As the old adage goes, variety is the spice of life. But in our current everything-all-the-time culture, variety in the true sense is in the process of disappearing.  And, sadly, we may have everything all the time, but we're the poorer for it.

Just as wild mushrooms herald fall, cherries' appearance means that summer has arrived. Cherries for me are the potent symbol of that wonderful feeling of being poised at the very beginning of summer. Remember how you felt on the last day of school before summer vacation? You had not yet used up even one of that precious hoard of golden days of freedom that stretched before you as limitlessly as the ocean. Of course, in the depths of your soul, you knew that with the passage of days, that the landfall of autumn would inevitably arrive. But for the moment, it seemed infinitely far away. When I pop the first cherry in my mouth, that's the feeling that comes back to me.

Le temps des cerises is that fleeting period in early summer when the foliage is fresh and perfect on every tree and the roses are in full bloom. The fragrance of honeysuckle lies sweet on the warm evening air, mingling with the thick scent of the first hay. Benevolent summer stretches before you like a limitless, shimmering field of golden wheat.  In the time of cherries, anything is possible, and everything is to be anticipated.

Luscious, dark, sweet cherries are perhaps the only fruit whose seasonal arrival has been celebrated in music. Le temps des cerises is the title of one of the prettiest of French popular songs. Written in 1866, with words by Jean-Baptiste Clément and music by Antoine Renard, it became associated after the fact with the Commune and the French Revolution. Ever since, the song has been considered the unofficial anthem of the French Left. Yet there's virtually nothing in the words of the song that can be interpreted as a leftist or revolutionary theme. (Go figure. ) As old as this song is, it remains popular today, probably due to its timelessly beautiful melody. Perhaps the most beautiful rendition of it that I've heard is sung by Nana Mouskouri.

Le Temps des Cerises

Quand nous chanterons le temps des cerises,
Et gai rossignol, et merle moqueur
Seront tous en fête !
Les belles auront la folie en tête
Et les amoureux du soleil au cœur !
Quand nous chanterons le temps des cerises
Sifflera bien mieux le merle moqueur !

Mais il est bien court, le temps des cerises
Où l'on s'en va deux cueillir en rêvant
Des pendants d'oreilles...
Cerises d'amour aux robes pareilles,
Tombant sous la feuille en gouttes de sang...
Mais il est bien court, le temps des cerises,
Pendants de corail qu'on cueille en rêvant !

Quand vous en serez au temps des cerises,
Si vous avez peur des chagrins d'amour,
Evitez les belles !
Moi qui ne crains pas les peines cruelles
Je ne vivrai pas sans souffrir un jour...
Quand vous en serez au temps des cerises
Vous aurez aussi des chagrins d'amour !

J'aimerai toujours le temps des cerises,

C'est de ce temps-là que je garde au cœur
Une plaie ouverte !

Et dame Fortune, en m'étant offerte
Ne saurait jamais calmer ma douleur...

J’aimerai toujours le temps des cerises
Et le souvenir que je garde au cœur !

Jean-Baptiste Clément (1866)

 

Pssssst! For lots of luscious recipes to celebrate cherriy season, check out Dans la Cuisine!

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Products of Interest:
Harvest hamper
Strawberry market basket