dark summer cherries baked beneath a sugared double crust until the juices run thick and ruby, the cherry pie of the Kent orchards, the Garden of England
Origin: United Kingdom
From the journey of Cherry.
The Romans first brought the cherry to Britain, but it was in Tudor times that England made it its own, when Richard Harris, fruiterer to Henry VIII, planted great orchards of cherry stock at Teynham in Kent around 1533. From that planting grew the cherry country of England: Kent, the Garden of England, whose blossom-white orchards and summer harvests gave the cherry to barrows, fairs, and farmhouse kitchens for four centuries. The Kentish way with the cherry was the pie, a deep double-crust pie of dark summer cherries beneath a sugar-crusted lid, the fruit baked until soft and the juices run thick, dark, and ruby. It is high-summer baking at its most straightforward and most satisfying, eaten warm with cream or custard, and it is the English ancestor of the American cherry pie that crossed the Atlantic with the colonists. A traditional Kentish touch is a little ground almond or a few crushed cherry stones in the filling, echoing the fruit's natural kinship with the almond, and the pie is sometimes served with the thick yellow cream of the West Country.
Kent cherries were traditionally sweet dessert cherries, but a mix of sweet and sour, or all Morellos with extra sugar, makes the best-flavoured pie. A spoonful of ground almonds in the base soaks up juice and echoes the cherry's almond note. Frozen cherries work; toss them with an extra spoonful of cornflour to manage the extra liquid.
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