Such a smart cherry! The birds fly searching for all the cherries starting to change color, but thinking this strange yellow fruit is not mature yet, they fly away. And the “smart cherry”, already sweet and sugary, escape from the plundering and remains for us poor devils without wings, always rewarded only with the hungry birds leftovers.

Once in a while we could be smarter and cultivate them in our orchard! At least with this variety we wouldn’t have to recourse to the various dissuasive strategies, often eccentric but nearly never effective, such as scarecrows of all forms, silver paper strips from the Easter chocolate eggs, fluttering plastic bags, self-propelled stuffed birds or expensive protection nettings.

So we can relish this cherry, thanks to its efficacious camouflage strategy, from the plant to the perfect level of maturity.

It is a tree of great growth, but if you want to harvest the cherries easily, you should do a good formation pruning when the plant is still young and then repeat the production pruning in June-July. In fact, it is only in this period, that the wounds heal easily and therefore less risks of illness occur. The peel of the white cherry is smooth and of a clear yellow color at the beginning, becoming more intense with maturity. The fruit is middle sized with a slightly irregular shape. The stalk is long and thin, the yellow pulp is firm and soft. As Gallesio say: “This fruit conserves in the middle maturity stage a slight sourness, but without having the acidity of other cherries; it will lose it completely refining on the tree, gaining such a remarkable sweetness, that some will consider it excessive.”

Excellent for its sweetness and curious for its color, it neither seems a cherry. This variety matures late, in the first decade of July.

In Tuscany called “Moscatella”, in Umbria “Limona, the white cherry was once common also in other regions, especially in the North. This type of cherry can be found in the fruit paintings of Bartolomeo Bimbi of the 17th century, a sign that this cherry was very much appreciated on the tables of the Medici court. Nowadays the white cherry has almost disappeared from gardens and orchards even though it can be cooked and transformed as the other varieties of cherries and to maintain its special yellow color. You can syrup it or soak it in alcohol, and since it is a “long lasting” fruit, it will conserve also the right pulp consistency.

Isabella Dalla Ragione