[Sca-cooks] fruit varieties for cooking

[ekoogler1 at comcast.net]

With many fruits, there are varieties that are better for cooking.  One thing is how well they stand up, flavor-wise, to being cooked.  Often, it is also how well they retain their character, shape, etc.  For example, the best apple for most uses is the Granny Smith...and I understand that, while it is not a period variety, it closely resembles one.  Perhaps others on this list can answer that one better.  And, as shoppers become more sophisticated in their tastes, grocery stores are beginning to carry a greater variety of everything...the very idea of finding, for example, blood oranges in lovely downtown Prince Frederick, MD even 5 years ago was impossible.  Now, they can be found, in season.

So far as cherries are concerned, you want to use the sour ones because adding sugar to a sweet cherry will make it overly sweet and you lose the characteristic flavor of the cherries.  Depending on what you do with them...and what you're looking for in this case is "mush", you'll still get "mush", but it will retain the character of "cherry".

Hope this helps.

Kiri

> Hmmm. There are particular varieties of apples that are better for 
> cooking, and I believe pears as well. Do most fruits have varieties 
> that are widely agreed to be better for cooking?
> 
> Unfortunately, I'm not sure these cooking varieties are easily 
> available, any more. Maybe I just don't recognise which varieties in 
> the fruit section of my grocery are specifially for or best for cooking.
> 
> Stefan
> --------