And let's not forget - it's pronounced "ma-ra-SKEE-noh."

I've often wondered about maraschino cherries -- if, in fact, they were derived from actual fruit at all. Thanks for a fun and informative article.

In Twin Peaks, Sherilyn Fenn applies for a job in a brothel. The madam asks what can you do. She pops a long-stemmed maraschino cherry into her mouth whole and then takes it out with the stem tied into a knot by her tongue. She is hired immediately.

When I was 19, at the height of the Vietnam War, having little choice from my draft board, I enlisted in the US Air Force. While undergoing basic training at Lackland AFB, my flight received our first dose of KP. I was assigned to make salads. I had to mix two trays of Jell-O. One was a full tray, that I would slice into cubes to put in the glass holders; the other was a tray of the glasses where I poured the liquid into each... no cubes.

I would pull a bowl, put in a lettuce leaf and the use a scoop to place potato salad, cole slaw, or macaroni salad, or a fistfull of shredded lettuce. Each would get a single maraschino cherry on top. The cherries came from a five-gallon glass jar. I found myself popping a maraschino cherry in my mouth after every couple dozen salads that I would make. A couple of the kitchen sergeants noticed, laughed, but they did not discourage me from partaking of the samples.

After a couple hours, I was called away. It appeared that someone had knocked my fatigue cap off its peg and it had fallen into the concoction they used to scrub out the pots. It was soaked. They rinsed it with steaming hot water and icy water, too, but few of the staff held out any hope that the cap would recover. They turned on an oven, opened the door, and placed an empty coffee can on the opened door. I was invited to shape my cap, so that it would dry in the shape I preferred, but with the understanding my cap most likely would not survive the emersion in lye, steam and ice.

The sergeant who knocked the cap said he had no money to give me to buy a new cap, but that he'd think of something. When the day was over, as I was placing the beat-up, shrunken cap on my head, the staff presented me with my compensation: a new, unopened 5-gallon jar of maraschino cherries. It bore my rank and name, and my flight number. They would keep it in the refrigerator, and supply me with a bowl of cherries every meal until I left the squadron.

Every meal, as I passed the salads, would find a bowl of maraschino cherries awaiting me. I always loved them. About five weeks later, as I was in line, about to gather my tray, flatware and napkin, the squadron commander cut in front of me. As I passed the salads, I was given my bowl. "Here are your cherries, Airman Adams."

"Your cherries?" the commander (a Major) asked.

I explained as little as possible, stammering. And then, I offered him a bowl. "Would you bring a bowl of cherries for the commander, please?" A bowl was filled from "my" jar and handed to him.

I went to get a glass of milk and sit, and the commander stood and said, "Airman Adams, join us, please." I gulped and sat with the commander, the vice commander, our first sergeant and the wing commander, a Colonel. I was required to tell my maraschino cherry story in detail. Luckily, it was greeted with laughter, especially when I offered the wing commander a bowl. Everyone at the table decided to join in with a bowl of their own, all served from my jar.

And I still have this story, nearly 40 years later. There's a nearly empty gallon jar of maraschino cherries in the back of my refrigerator tonight.

(A dye derived from radishes and black carrots proved to be the ticket, though maraschinos colored with that combination make up just a smidgen of national sales.)

Those that don't fall into the "smidgen" are colored with carmine or cochineal-dervied dyes, made from crushed bugs. Funny how they left that part out.

Disgusting.

Josh, thanks for a beautifully written, insightful article. I'll forever think of maraschinos as "the neon bouys" in Shirley Temples. Who knew these little gems of Americana could capture our lives--childhoods and adulthoods--so well?

My big childhood memory of the maraschino is kind of campy/kind of sinister: My mother would pluck hers from her sundae and ask my brother and me, "Who wants the poison cherry?" Sick little buggers, we both would say "Me!"

A somewhat less erotically suggestive maraschino memory: I remember listening to my Uncle Vern gleefully recall his days in a maraschino-cherry factory, where bird poop tumbled unabated into open vats of cherries, what I presume was the "briny bath" Sens mentions.

If I gather the article's points correctly, once upon a time the cherries were ultimately preserved in a liquor (itself made from cherries). The cherry of today sounds like it never has liquor touching its lips.

So, is there any gourmand purveyor out there trying to revive 'authentic' recipe maraschino cherries, made with cherry liquor? I might be interested to try as much...

Thank you for the compulsively readable story. I'm a raging omnivore who's happily sampled fried insects, pork blood, and canned cream of mushroom soup casseroles. There's only one thing I vehemently refuse to touch -- maraschino cherries.

Is it a taste thing? A wistful pity for the lovely dark fruit that's been gruesomely maimed? The unshakeable memory of too many tense childhood family gatherings punctuated with Shirley Temples? I have no idea. But ice cream sundaes and alcoholic beverages remain two of my favorite things in the world, and I die a little inside when I see one marred by one of those little red devils.

Maybe it's true what they say about knowing thy enemy, because as soon as I saw Sens' article, I had to read it. Wonderful. And I'll still send my drink back if it's been tainted by one of the buggers.