Cherries a la Paree

The cherries were a specialty of the restaurant that June night in Paris. It was the last night of our family trip to France with our daughter Peggy, her husband Eric, and their children, Heidi and Kurt. We had decided to splurge on dinner at a charming café. “What fun,” Peggy said when the waiter described the special dessert on the menu: cerises au vin rouge avec miel (cherries in red wine sauce with honey).

This had been a simple vacation at the farmhouse in the Dordogne area, somewhat north between Toulouse and Bordeaux. We’d made several trips to the local markets: fabulous cheeses and wines and sausages, home grown chickens, all cooked in our farmhouse kitchen. Peggy and Eric are masters of country French cooking: that is simple good foods made with fresh produce, vegetables, garlic, oil and butter. This is a family tradition, since my grandmother was a Cormier, a descendent of French Canadian voyageurs. “Country French cooking,” is how my husband Robert describes our way with food. It is always simple, but good. “Tres bon.”

We had traveled for four days to the Mediterranean, on the unfashionable side, west of the Rhone River. On the drive down from Toulouse to and around St. Cyprien near the Mediterranean, we noticed the signs everywhere: cerises, cerises, cerises: cherries, cherries, cherries! There were also vineyards, basking in the sun, protected with bug trapping rows of roses.

“Look at the apricot trees,” Peggy said.

“Did you notice the sign for Valmy?” Bob asked.

Door County is known as a refuge for the many settlers who came from the Scandinavian countries but it was also a haven for French settlers. Frogtown in Baileys Harbor and Valmy near Lake Michigan record their presence. Could some of the French settlers who arrived in the Door have come from the Mediterranean town of Valmy? Why wouldn’t they have transplanted their place name just like every other nationality?

“Does this remind you of Door County?” Peggy asked. We were near water – the Mediterranean – and the land appeared rocky, near the foothills of the Pyrenees. It was similar…but, alas, not quite the same.

We returned to Toulouse, then headed back home to America via Paris. Because of our flight times, we’d decided to spend that last night in Paris. Eric Siebert is just the right son-in-law for a trip to France, since he is a vice president at the Chicago branch of Societe Generale. Eric is fluent in French and has many colleagues and friends around France. So, “Let’s spend our last evening at the Cafe Le Clos des Gourmets.”

It was a charming storefront café. A woman in black slacks and white polo blouse greeted us. “Bon soir,” she said with a charming lilt.

The café was simple, yet elegant with just a few French paintings on the walls. The waiter, also dressed with black pants and white shirt, led us to the table for six. The table was graced with a small bouquet of fresh flowers, a white linen table cloth, linen napkins. “Ici,” he said, indicating our table with a flourish. The service was impeccable!

“Let’s try the cerises for dessert,” Peggy suggested. Having just returned from cherry country, we all thought this was just the right way to finish our French vacation. We did indeed order “Les cerises, s’il vous plait.” (The cherries, if you please.)

At the close of our meal, the waiter served said cherries with flair. They were crinkled and swimming elegantly in the red wine sauce, all arrayed in petite crystal dishes with long stems. Peggy took one bite. Her face brightened with pleasure at the elegant flavor in the dessert cherry. “They taste just like Door County cherries,” Peggy said. The dessert reminded her of summers in Ephraim.

“These are Montmorency cherries,” I said as I tasted. I thought of the garden catalogues that arrive each spring advertising this special cherry. Then I remembered the trees we had recently seen near the French Valmy on the shore of the Mediterranean. “Could the Montmorency cherries have come to the Door as early as the French Immigrants?” I wondered aloud.

When I got back home to the States, I googled “Montmorency cherry.” A few moments later, I was on the phone to Peggy. “Yes, I was right,” I said. “The Montmorency cherry is an heirloom tree developed 400 years ago in the Montmorency valley in France. It just might have come with the immigrants.”

The Montmorency cherry is grown extensively in the United States in the Great Lakes areas around Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. Here in Ephraim we know it as the Door County cherry but it is still a gift to us from France. Did the French immigrants who settled in Valmy actually introduce the Montmorency cherry here? Did they bring the trees by boat? How did the rootstock survive? Did they arrive like our sturdy immigrant forebears to become a touch of France transplanted in our own Door Peninsula?

“Voila!” as the French exclaim.

However they got here, “c’est tre jolie!” Indeed, it is great fun to enjoy French cherries here in the Door.