I Gave My Love A Cherry

My Daddy loved cherries. It didn’t matter what kind. He liked them fresh, and loved them covered in chocolate. He’d eat them in a pie or in ice cream. Best of all, he loved Maraschino cherries. He would eat a whole jar full at a time. However, it wasn’t always that way. When he was young, he couldn’t stand them. He didn’t acquire a taste for cherries until he was in the Navy in WWII.

When my Momma got sick, before the cancer went to her brain, she started telling me family stories. This is what she told me about Daddy and his love for cherries.

My Daddy was stationed on the USS Cumberland Sound in the 1940s. It was one of the ships present in Tokyo Bay when Japan surrendered. Those Navy boys were always anxious for letters and packages from home. My father wrote in his letters complaining to my mother that there was no alcohol aboard ship, and he really would have liked a drink.

That got Momma thinking and wishing she could find a way to send him some whiskey. Whiskey, however, was illegal to send through the mail. When she voiced the idea to one of her co-workers, he said, “Get a jar of Maraschino cherries, pour out the juice and fill the jar with whiskey. No one will ever know.”

Momma decided to give that a try, but she knew full well that Daddy didn’t like cherries. She packaged up the whiskey soaked cherries. Then, she wrote a separate letter to explain what was in that jar of cherries. She was grinning like a possum in a plum tree when she took those to the post office.

Weeks later, Daddy got Momma’s jar of cherr… package and letter at mail call. He opened the package first, of course, and saw the cherries. “Yuk,” he thought. He tossed them to one of his buddies, who immediately opened the jar and started eating, while Daddy sat down to open his letter. He heard his friends behind him snickering as he read the letter. Momma had written several paragraphs of the usual “I miss you” and “I love you” before she got down to her explanation of that jar of Maraschino cherries.

When Daddy read that the jar was filled with whiskey, he turned around and leaped across the room to get what was left of the jar. His friend had already drunk all the “juice,” but there was still half a jar of whiskey soaked cherries and he ate them all right then.

After that, my Daddy had a fondness for that little red fruit. It was always easy to decide what to get him for Father’s Day. He wouldn’t wear a tie, and he didn’t want handkerchiefs; but if we gave him a jar of cherries he was tickled pink.

I remembered that story as I was looking for an ice cream recipe for tomorrow night. This is one I found, and I thought I might give it a try:

Beat eggs senseless for 3 minutes on high speed of electric mixer in a large mixing bowl; gradually add sugar and salt, beating well. Add evaporated milk and pie filling, mixing until combined. Stir in milk.
Pour mixture into freezer can of a 1 1/2 gallon ice cream freezer. Freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. Let “ripen” at least 1 1/2 hours. Yield: 1 1/2 gallons.
Note: To prepare in a 1 gallon freezer, divide mixture and freeze each half separately. Refrigerate mixture until frozen (duh).

Good thing I’m not on a diet! I’ll let you know how that all works.

I bought an ice cream freezer last week at Lowe’s so that I could make some banana pudding ice cream for my family reunion. We couldn’t find them at first, and I asked one of the young fellas running around the store where the ice cream freezers might be.

He said, “A freezer? Does it have to say ice cream on it?” He was glancing over at the appliances.

“No, not a big freezer” I patiently explained. “It’s one of those little containers that you use to make ice cream.”

“OHHH,” he said. “You mean an ice cream maker.”

I told him, “Honey, I’m from Texas, and we call ‘em freezers. Just show me where they are.”

I’m just telling you that, in case you didn’t understand the recipe. Anybody have a favorite recipe with cherries in it? Anybody know how to make that recipe low fat?

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Not your “just desserts”
2. Stuff It
3. Wistful Thinking
4. Excuse Me, Gotta Run
5. Foiled Again

Tagged as: humor, in the kitchen, Memories, recipes