Bowl of Cherries

I eat these things like popcorn. Aside from stained fingers, there is little downside to enjoying a few cherries. You get to spit out seeds across the backyard, they taste great, you can look them over pretty carefully so you don’t end up with one that might be a bit, uh, off…

But there’s more: They are generally the first fruit that comes out in my neck of the woods. There is something I just love about the concept of local fresh fruit – as opposed to wooden strawberries from some spot several time zones away – and, of course, they’re tremendously photogenic.

Getting a bit existential for a moment, does a bowl of cherries signify anything more than just a great snack? I can’t think of anything biblical regarding cherries, and they certainly haven’t been involved as a flashpoint for any international conflicts, as far as I remember. They also didn’t kick over a lantern and burn down a city.

And yet I can’t help that in eating these guys there is something I should feel guilty about – further to yesterday’s comments on the article that suggested that telling everyone how great your sourdough bread is is actually a form of snobbishness and social exclusion.

I don’t want to exclude anyone. I want to eat my cherries. Is it possible to strip politics out of writing about food? I’m not sure it is.