Life is a Bowl of Cherries - Removing the PITS

I had a food bank board meeting this past week. I always stay after and type up the minutes of the meeting while they are still fresh in my head.

The workers there told me they had a pallet of cherries that they didn't think would last through the weekend to distribute as they aren't open Friday and the weekend so they told me to take what I wanted and distribute them. 

I have never bought enough cherries to do much with other than eating them fresh as they are so expensive. On sale at their cheapest, they are nearly $3 a pound and usually even more than that so we buy them on sale maybe once or twice a year (if that) to enjoy fresh. 

When I was little, we would go pick them off the trees and enjoy them fresh and would pick enough to bottle. I am not much of a "canner" as you know if you read my blog, but due to the cost, I have never dried cherries. I thought it would be good to try doing that with my windfall of cherries this week. 

Today, I will share what I learned about pitting cherries. I have to say that I am a little embarrassed by the amount of cherry pitting items in my house. In looking, I guess that when I would see one at a second hand store on sale, I would purchase it as I planted a cherry tree a few years back with five varieties of cherries on it. In the past few years, we have had a handful of really enjoyable cherries but not enough to do more than eat. In my hopefulness, I guess I was hoping I would get enough to freeze or dry thinking I may need a cherry stoner in the future. 

I found three hand held pitters and a mason jar one that does one at a time and then a "Feeding" one that does them quite quickly. I remember using a "feeding" type while helping bottle them about age 14. Before that time, we canned them with the pits in and just spit them out while eating them out of the jar. 

The small metal ones you just hold the cherry in the opening and push down. The metal at the bottom bruises the cherry and the pit pops out but it takes some time.

The plastic hand held one has a better base holding the cherry instead of bruising the bottom. It leaves the smallest mark of any of the pitters and would be the one I would purchase if I needed pristine looking pitted cherries.

Or, if I just wanted to eat them pitted or feed them to a child or an elderly person. It is fairly quick and easy and doesn't bruise the fruit as much as any of the other pitters. This is the "go to" for those in the above situations. 

The mason jar pitter is also one you can use to pit through the tip stem hole and works fast and keeps the pit contained but the exit hole is much more visible and large so it would work if you were feeding someone the pitted cherries but not as much if you wanted to use them where you wanted them to look whole and pretty. It did take a bit more push on the top than using the thumb method as well if that is an issue to anyone. 

The quickest by far, yet the messiest as well is the self feeding pitter / stoner. It has a tray that feeds the next cherry into the pitter. One drawback is that the cherry often gets stuck on the pitter metal and needs to be pulled off or shaken off or it drops back into the hole so I used a spoon to pull it out so I didn't touch the cherries.

If it worked right, they would pop out quite fast but at least 2 in 5 had the pit stuck on it still and had to be pulled off, once again, I used a small spoon to cut the pit off and put it in the discard bowl. 

I have a video showing the merits of each pitter. In all, I would probably stick with the thumb one wearing gloves to keep my hands clean if I weren't going to do bulk or wanted them to look decent.

If volume is the goal and you don't care about looks, like maybe using it to make fruit leather, I would use the self feeding one but you have to pull off the stems, then sometimes feed them in, then pull them off and sometimes dig out the pit so all in all, I don't know how much time they saved in the end if you were fast with the thumb pitter, it may be a wash. 

I am so blessed to have the food bank in my life. I was able to share with friends, neighbors, and family. I froze some to share with my girls when they come next. I'll share about how to do that tomorrow. Have a BLESSED DAY!