Finding Kentucky's Lost Cherry | The Savers of Flavor | Full Episode

0:05 David: Join us as we delve into forgotten

0:08 flavors of southern orchards and discover the Dyehouse cherry.

0:16 To know what's lost, you have to know what was.

0:21 A final request of Kentuckian George Dyehouse was to grow a southern cherry,

0:27 a tasty tart cherry, a cherry to dye for...

0:31 But over time, this flavorful sour cherry was lost.

0:36 What happened?

0:38 A mystery.

0:40 [opening music]♪ In every heirloom seed lies a story of survival,

0:46 of resilience, a flavor forgotten by the modern world.

0:50 Join Charleston chef Kevin Mitchell and me,

0:53 food historian David Shields on our mission

0:55 to preserve the long lost flavors of the South.

0:59 We are "The Savers of Flavor."♪ music plays:♪ Can

1:12 she make a cherry pie,♪♪ Billy Boy, Billy Boy?

1:17 Can she make a cherry pie?

1:20 Charming Billy♪ David> There it is.

1:24 Dyehouse.

1:25 The one classic southern cherry.

1:28 Glossy.

1:29 Orange red.

1:31 Best very early cherry.

1:35 [phone rings] Kevin.

1:38 Hey, I got it.

1:41 Yeah, I found it in a Stark Brothers catalog.

1:44 The Dyehouse.

1:47 That's right.

1:49 We're on.

1:51 [sound of car engine]♪ David> Here's some curvy, country roads here.

2:08 It's like squiggles on the map.

2:11 Kevin> This car is handling it pretty good.

2:14 Pretty good.

2:15 David> Well, it's a ton and a half of American steel.

2:18 Hey, Kevin, what would you say are the classic southern pies?

2:25 Kevin> The top of my head, we have pecan,

2:28 sweet potato, David> You got to agree with that.

2:31 Kevin> buttermilk, blueberry, cherry.

2:34 David> You know, when you go over that list,

2:37 and I think that's a really good list,

2:41 you presume that all the ingredients used to make the pies come from the south.

2:45 Kevin> Yes.

2:46 You know, sugar cane grows in the south,

2:49 so you would have to expect that the rest

2:51 of those ingredients grow right here in the South as well.

2:55 David> I thought so, too, until I learned about the cherries.

2:59 Kevin> What are you saying?

3:00 No one grows cherries in the south.

3:02 David> Cherries are gone with the wind.

3:06 Kevin> It's got to be B.S.

3:07 I mean, the many historic southern kitchens I've traveled through

3:12 and cooked in, the cherry pitting machine was standard equipment.

3:16 David> Cherries were grown in the south.

3:19 There was this one cherry that was cultivated

3:25 from the 1870s to the 1950s that was a southern cherry.

3:33 The name of that cherries.

3:34 The Dyehouse.

3:35 It hails from Kentucky.

3:37 Kevin> Where does cherry fall in the spectrum of deliciousness?

3:41 David> Well, you know, it's definitely on the tart cherry side.

3:44 It's a classic pie and, preserves.

3:51 I guess they call it jam up in this part of the woods.

3:54 Kevin> You gotta call it jam.

3:56 David> And you're probably wondering, you know, how did the cherry get lost?

4:01 Kevin> Yeah.

4:01 Where did it go?

4:02 Why is it lost?

4:03 David> Can't really say.

4:04 It's something of a mystery.

4:06 Particularly since it was sold by Stark Brothers, a major national nursery.

4:12 The Second World War,

4:13 it was sold by so many people and planted by so many people.

4:17 I figure it still has to be out here somewhere.

4:20 Kevin> How'd you track this one down?

4:22 David> I got a friend here in Kentucky, and he has a show,

4:27 radio show, and he heard that I was interested in tracking down this cherry.

4:31 So, he did a most wanted poster type of, show with descriptions

4:36 and, photographs and got broadcast and wouldn't you know, it got a hit.

4:42 Somerset, Kentucky.

4:44 That's not too far from Lincoln County,

4:47 where the, cherry began, and that's where we're heading.

4:52 <Okay> So, to the old family land of, Dan Dutton, an artist.

4:58 Kevin> An artist.

4:59 Hey, that's fascinating.

5:01 David> Here it is.

5:02 Campground Road.

5:04 We're getting close.

5:13 We'll have to see what an artist bailiwick looks like.

5:17 Kevin> Yeah, I'm very, very fascinated by that.

5:24 Dan> David.

5:26 Welcome.

5:28 So good to see you.

5:29 David> Hey, it's great to be here.

5:31 Dan> Kevin.

5:32 Nice to meet you.

5:34 Welcome to Dandyland.

5:35 <Thank you> David> I couldn't help notice, but these wonderful,

5:38 huge trees on the way and how long as your family owned this farm?

5:42 Dan> The first deed is in 1810,

5:45 and the farm kind of expanded a little bit after that.

5:48 So, these trees have been growing here quite a while.

5:51 Kevin> All right, well, speaking of trees, let's go see this cherry tree.

5:54 Dan> All right.

5:55 Well, it's just over the edge of the garden.

5:56 Let's take a step over here.

5:57 David> Show us the way.

6:00 This is a great old beech tree here to the left.

6:03 Dan> Oh, thanks.

6:04 Yeah.

6:05 There's really some wonderful plants growing here.

6:09 Look, here's a wild black raspberry that I let those grow here.

6:13 The wild phlox.

6:16 And here is the Dyehouse sapling.

6:19 David> This is it.

6:19 <Yes> There's an entire grove of these things.

6:21 Dan> Yes.

6:22 They've come up from the roots, wherever, I don't mow, they come up.

6:26 But, if you just step back here,

6:28 I'll show you the mother tree that they originate from.

6:31 <Oh> So here it is.

6:33 The modest thing now.

6:36 Couple of years ago, we had a winter storm that took the mother tree down.

6:40 And I have seen that happen three times now in my lifetime.

6:45 And, new tree has come back up out of the roots.

6:48 And that's what you see here.

6:49 It's probably two years old.

6:52 David> What was the circumference of this?

6:56 Dan> I want to say probably about 16 inches.

6:59 It makes a tree about 30 foot tall, if you let it go.

7:04 And I fully expect that I'll see it get that large,

7:07 because as you can see, it's a fast growing tree.

7:10 David> Well, looks like the roots are still alive.

7:12 Dan> Yes.

7:13 Yeah.

7:14 And they're headed out here under the yard.

7:16 If I didn't mow this, that would be Dyehouse,

7:19 There would be Dyehouse saplings just like this, growing everywhere.

7:23 David> So how far out do they grow?

7:25 Dan> Well, they grow all the way out across

7:28 the yard to the other side of the garden.

7:30 And where I stop mowing and stop plowing, they come back up again.

7:34 So, there's actually a whole row headed out through there.

7:38 Yeah, it's a lovely tree in the spring.

7:40 It has, pretty flowers.

7:43 And then the fruit is a lovely thing to on.

7:46 David> It looks like there's, something chewing on it.

7:50 So, you know, it must be good.

7:51 Dan> Yes.

7:53 Well, I'll tell you, the birds certainly love the cherries.

7:56 You have to, you have to be, early to rise to beat the birds to them.

8:01 <Right> All right, if you'll follow me, I'll show you my painting studio.

8:06 And I'll show you a painting of the cherry tree.

8:09 David> Great.

8:10 So, Dan, I can't tell how old this building is.

8:14 Dan> Well, I built it,

8:16 but the wood came from a carriage barn built in, around 1810, 1820.

8:22 soft music♪ David> There was a moment

8:26 when you realized that this was this famous

8:31 lost cherry that people had been combing the South for decades trying to find.

8:38 What changes took place?

8:41 Did people start approaching you about the cherries or...

8:45 Dan> I saw the image and thought, okay, well that looks like the same cherry.

8:49 And then I started reading a little bit about that.

8:54 And whenever I landed on the sentence that it was last known,

8:58 growing along Crab Orchard Road, I was like, well, that's here.

9:03 And then it all begins to sort of fall in place.

9:06 I knew that my dad's home place here, which dated back to 1810,

9:11 that there were a lot of different fruit trees there.

9:14 And my parents loved, fruit trees and move trees from there to this farm.

9:20 Once the botanist came here and examined the tree, you know,

9:23 in more detail and the determination was made that it was the Dyehouse.

9:28 I know for me, that was that deal of reading,

9:30 of how that it came up from root, root suckers coming up to form new trees.

9:35 I thought, that's it.

9:36 That's got to be it.

9:38 All these things, it fell into place, the color of it.

9:41 I had not yet done any taste comparison.

9:44 I literally hadn't tasted any other sour pod cherries except this one,

9:48 so I had no idea how unique the flavor

9:51 is <Right> until the this all came to pass.

9:55 And then as various orchardist throughout the South began to, you know,

10:02 to email me and message me.

10:04 You know, I started digging the saplings up,

10:07 wrapping them in wet newspapers and packing them in a way

10:11 I thought they would survive and sending them off.

10:13 And as more and more of them beginning to go outward,

10:16 it began to strike me more the importance of the situation.

10:20 David> Give us some sort of geographic,

10:23 range of where these trees have been gone.

10:26 Dan> I think the farther south is probably Louisiana,

10:29 North Carolina, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Arkansas.

10:37 I've sent trees to all of those states, now.

10:39 It could just as easily have happened that I would have

10:43 lived and died without ever knowing that the Dyehouse was here,

10:47 and someone could have just bulldozed it over,

10:50 and that would have been the end of the tree and the end of that story.

10:53 But instead the story blossomed again.

10:56 I think that's beautiful.

10:58 David> I noticed this painting here, <Right,

11:01 aflutter with birds> where the birds are, dancing in between the branches,

11:09 brandishing their newly plucked cherries from this tree.

11:14 Well, it looks like your cherry picker is slumbering down there.

11:18 David> Yes.

11:20 You know, the cherry picker has picked a bucket of cherries.

11:21 And there they are, the wonderful things.

11:23 But now has started to dream about perhaps the pods to come or whatever,

11:28 and dozes off, and the birds come

11:30 and steal all the cherries while you're doing it.

11:33 So, the idea of keeping these heirlooms alive and so that they can

11:38 travel onward through time and nourish people

11:41 and amaze people with these beautiful flavors, that's what I think is important.

11:49 David> You know, my conversation with Dan put me in mind

11:52 of a poem I read in the old Saint Nicholas Magazine.

11:55 This was published back in the 1870s.

11:58 It was called, "Cherries." Under the tree, the farmer said,

12:08 smiling and shaking his wise old head, Cherries are ripe.

12:14 But then you know there's grass to cut and corn to hoe.

12:20 We can gather the cherries any day,

12:23 but when the sun shines we must make our hay.

12:27 Tonight, when the chores have all been done,

12:31 we'll muster the boys for fruit and fun.

12:36 Up in the tree, a robin said,

12:39 perking and cocking his saucy head, "Cherries are ripe.

12:45 And so today we'll gather them while you make the hay.

12:50 We are the boys with no corn to hoe, no cows to milk,

12:55 and no grass to mow." At night, the farmer said,

13:01 "Here's a trick, those roguish robins have had their pick."♪

13:13 Kevin> I've got a beautiful array of cherries here for you.

13:16 Dan> I don't think I've ever seen so many kinds of cherries.

13:19 What do we have here?

13:20 Kevin> When you go to the grocery store,

13:22 fresh cherries you see during cherry season are either these <okay>

13:26 or these <right> and both of these are sweet cherries.

13:29 You don't get fresh sour cherries in American grocery stores.

13:32 <Why is that?> American grocery stores

13:35 want to sell immediate gratification cherries.

13:37 Fruit you can buy, pop in your mouth and pay off in a really big way.

13:42 Dan> Ahh, I get it.

13:43 So just wash it and eat it.

13:45 Kevin> Yes.

13:45 Here you have the classic Bing.

13:47 <Okay> And this was created by a Chinese immigrant named

13:50 Ah Bing at the Seth Lewelling Orchard in Milwaukee, Oregon.

13:54 This one arose in the mid 1870s as a cross

13:59 between the Black Republican cherry and the Royal Ann.

14:03 Here's its parent, the Royal Ann, now considered a specialty cherry.

14:07 It was originally a French sweet cherry sold

14:10 in the early 19th century called the Napoleon Bigarreau.

14:14 It is softer than the Bing, which makes it harder to ship, but it is sweet.

14:19 Now we use it for chocolate covered cherries or for home canning.

14:23 The Royal Ann looks closer to the Rainier cherry than the Bing cherry,

14:28 yet the Bing was one of its parents.

14:31 Variety called the Van is the other.

14:34 Down in the South, we don't see this cherry much.

14:38 This is called the Lapins, which was another offspring of the Van Cherry.

14:42 It was bred in British Columbia in Canada and released in 1983 by Karlis Lapins,

14:48 and is well-loved by growers since it doesn't split when growing.

14:53 Sweetheart cherry is another Canadian bred sweet cherry.

14:57 Its great claim to fame is that it grows on a self fertilizing tree,

15:02 so you don't have to have pairings of a male and a female trees in the orchard.

15:07 Dan> Ahh, so a home grown could grow a single tree and grow this cherry.

15:11 Kevin> Finally, here is a sour cherry that dominates the American market.

15:15 It is an old French heirloom called the Montmorency,

15:18 and orchards of the tree cover entire counties in Michigan.

15:22 Dan> Okay.

15:23 Well, let me try this.

15:29 Okay, it's tart, but it is not as tart as the Dyehouse cherry.

15:34 And it doesn't have its intense of cherry flavor, either.

15:37 Kevin> So we've got sweet cherries from Oregon,

15:41 Washington, Canada, and Northern California.

15:44 We've got sour cherries from Michigan.

15:46 What is the geographic common denominator here?

15:50 Dan> All those of northern states or northern parts of states.

15:54 So why is that?

15:55 Kevin> All cherries need to be cold for a portion

15:57 of the year in order for the trees to set fruit.

16:00 So that's something of a problem in parts of the South.

16:03 The Dyehouse is a variety that doesn't require

16:06 as many chill hours as other sour cherries to flourish.

16:10 That's the one reason why it became the southern cherry.

16:15 Dan> That and the fact that it tastes fantastic and I

16:18 think that it's going to be much better for making pies.

16:22 Kevin> Let's go make a pie.

16:23 Dan> I'm ready.

16:24 Let's do it.

16:24 Kevin> All right.

16:25 Let's do it.

16:32 Dan> Do you want to try making this pie the way my mom made it?

16:35 Kevin> I would love to do that.

16:36 Dan> I'll show you how old fashioned Kentucky pies were made, okay?

16:39 Kevin> Perfect.

16:40 That's what I'm waiting for.

16:42 Fantastic.

16:42 We want to make the crust first.

16:43 Sure.

16:43 Okay.

16:44 Go right ahead.

16:44 Dan> All right, well, let me get in here.

16:46 So we've got about three cups here.

16:49 That's perfect.

16:50 Kevin> Now, why is this pie so special to you?

16:52 Dan> My mom was a wonderful cook, and we grew up eating her cherry pies,

16:57 all of her fruit pies, blackberry, raspberry, apple,

17:01 peach, all the different kinds of fruit pies.

17:04 I learned how to cook in the kitchen with her.

17:07 One thing that she told me actually, about making, pie crust.

17:11 She said, go by, feel, not by sight.

17:16 She meant quite a bit <Yes> by that.

17:19 Kevin> My grandmother would say the same thing.

17:20 She make pies, her pies that she would make the most would be sweet potato.

17:25 I try to get her in the kitchen to make me a sweet potato pie.

17:27 Dan> get a taste of home.

17:28 All right, I'm gonna put a pinch of salt in with this.

17:31 We're going to do a mixture, probably about 50-50 of butter and lard.

17:34 And I'm going to say we're going to put in maybe about six tablespoons.

17:40 <Okay> When I first begin learning to bake things in the kitchen, you know,

17:45 watching my mom, it seem that there must be some kind of magic involved in it.

17:49 You know, I would ask her, I would say,

17:51 stop and let me measure that, you know, and she would say, okay, watch this.

17:56 She's like, pour some salt into her, palm of her hand.

18:00 She said, give me that spoon.

18:01 Pour it out, exactly one teaspoon.

18:04 Kevin> That's how my grandmother did it.

18:06 She wouldn't give me recipes, per se.

18:09 She would just make me sit and watch.

18:11 <Watch> That's the beauty of food for me,

18:14 you know, just learning from, you know, the matriarch, the woman,

18:17 the woman of the family Dan> passing that love on down.

18:20 <Yes> That's true.

18:21 So when you get this about the texture,

18:23 of course meal, you know, you could have lumps.

18:25 My mom would say that's big as a pea.

18:27 You don't need to fuss over it a whole bunch.

18:29 And now you just need enough water to get

18:32 this to come together in a crumbly mass.

18:35 Kevin> Starting to look good.

18:36 Dan> Typically, I'll chill this for about a half hour,

18:39 15 minutes to a half hour.

18:41 How about I go take this and put it

18:43 in the fridge and I'll be right back with the dough.

18:45 Kevin> And I'll start working on the filling.

18:47 <All right> So of course we have our beautiful Dyehouse cherries here.

18:52 We have about five cups or so in here.

18:54 We're just going to add that.

18:56 We got about a cup of sugar here.

18:58 You try to get as much as the sugar

19:01 granules melted into this beautiful cherry liquid here.

19:04 Then from there you're going to need a little bit of, cornstarch.

19:08 Of course, that's going to bring the pie together.

19:10 About a third of a cup of cornstarch.

19:13 Just kind of sprinkle it over.

19:17 Now, I like to add just a little bit of, vanilla.

19:22 So I'm going to do just about a teaspoon of vanilla extract here.

19:26 And then I like to use a little bit of lemon.

19:28 Just scrape once or twice.

19:31 Now I'm gonna do just a pinch of salt.

19:33 Got the, the filling made?

19:35 Dan> Well I took the dough and I divided

19:37 it into two discs and chilled it a little bit.

19:39 So we're ready now to roll this out.

19:42 Flour this up here.

19:45 Kevin> That's why I try to instill with my students at the culinary school.

19:50 You gotta have the heart.

19:51 You gotta have passion for what you want to do.

19:54 I can show them all the rest.

19:56 Dan> I'll move this over,

19:57 and I'm going to pop this on, and you can you may have to do a little,

20:02 a little adjusting there to get that in place.

20:05 Kevin> So we're going to put the, just go ahead and put the filling in, yes?

20:07 Dan> Okay.

20:09 Mmm.

20:09 Look at that.

20:10 It's going to be good.

20:12 Kevin> This is going to be really good.

20:13 We want to use up all these beautiful Dyehouse cherries in here.

20:16 Dan> Yeah, they're a precious thing.

20:18 Kevin> You like me to trim this off a little bit?

20:20 Dan> Yeah.

20:20 Just go ahead and, if you want to, and trim that.

20:23 I think of it as my own innovation.

20:25 But, I'm sure plenty of other people have done it,

20:27 but it's great for doing a lattice, a pizza cutter.

20:30 <Yeah> So I'm just going to try to make, some strips.

20:34 Kevin> Yeah.

20:35 So you're all about a thinner lattice.

20:37 Dan> This is about the size that I really like in terms of having

20:41 a certain amount of crust with the amount of filling that you have.

20:44 So I'm going to take every other strip, you know,

20:47 so that I'll have enough to go the other way.

20:50 And I'm just going to place these about the same width of what my cut was.

20:55 Kevin> Okay.

20:56 Beautiful already.

20:57 Dan> I hear a catbird up there that's fussing about us,

21:01 like, yeah, you all the ones that got my cherries.

21:04 [laughs] True labor of love right here.

21:08 All right, so what we're going to do is,

21:10 I'm just going to fold back every other one across here,

21:15 really carefully lay it over on top of itself.

21:17 Yeah, just fold it back a little bit and we're going

21:20 to put the first one on and then just bring them back.

21:23 And when you do give it a little press

21:26 and we're going to do every other one again.

21:28 The ones that have gone over now are going to need to go the other way.

21:33 And like I say this is kind of delicate.

21:35 And this one here is our broken one.

21:36 So this is where we're going to do this hard.

21:39 See, you know, in the kitchen you have a little mistake.

21:43 Nobody is going to I know.

21:46 Yeah.

21:46 You make a pie like this and you're intersecting

21:50 with history and community and a really wonderful way.

21:56 Kevin> And that's what, for me, food is all about,

21:59 is learning and understanding where things come from and for me specifically,

22:04 you know, the people.

22:06 Dan> Making something like this in the kitchen together,

22:09 it's a way of making friendships, too.

22:11 All right.

22:12 Now that we got those all on there,

22:13 just go around and sort of give them a little bit of a press with your fingers.

22:18 Now, if you trim that off all the way around with the knife again.

22:24 Kevin> So what do you have there?

22:25 Dan> Well, this is one of my little personal touches.

22:27 I've mixed some, milk and some maple sirup together.

22:32 It's to help the sugar we're going to put on, stick to it.

22:36 But the little bit of brownness that it has to it, you know,

22:41 helps this lattice to have it come out with a nice golden color.

22:44 You just going to do regular white sugar?

22:46 Let's, let's use the, the raw sugar on it

22:48 and we'll have even a little bit more brown.

22:51 You see if you can get a little bit everywhere on there.

22:53 Kevin> I think we're good to go.

22:54 Dan> All right I'm going to pop this in the oven.

22:56 <All right> And, about 45 minutes to an hour we're going to have a pie.

23:00 Kevin> Oh, fantastic.

23:09 Dan> We have pies.

23:10 Kevin> Beautiful.

23:12 David> Oh, look at that.

23:13 Well, deserves to be on a pedestal.

23:14 Dan, come on over here.

23:15 Down with me.

23:15 I'm eager to have a taste of this.

23:18 And don't be stingy here.

23:20 [laughs] No, I don't think that Chef Mitchell's going to do that.

23:24 Serious slice of pie.

23:27 David> Oh, no.

23:28 You're not getting this, Dan.

23:30 [laughs] Dan> I should have known.

23:33 David> I've been the person that's been looking for the Dyehouse for years.

23:37 Look at that.

23:38 Dan> That's everything you'd want a cherry pie to be.

23:39 Yeah, look at that color, the crystal.

23:43 To George W.

23:45 Dyehouse, wherever you are.

23:57 Yeah, that's a lip smacker.

24:00 Dan> This to me, is the taste of home.

24:02 Kevin> Sugar on the lattice.

24:04 Really nice texture.

24:06 David> Dan, we need to serenade.

24:09 <A serenade?> That's right.

24:11 Dan> Pies ain't enough for you, David.

24:13 You need music, too?

24:15 The old mountain dulcimer.

24:18 Kentucky dulcimer.

24:19 David> Go ahead, Dan.

24:20 You know the one.

24:21 Dan>♪ Can she bake a♪♪ cherry pie, Billy boy, Billy boy?

24:26 Can she bake a♪♪ Cheery pie, Charming Billy?

24:33 She can bake a cherry pie,♪♪ quick as a cat can wink its eye.

24:38 She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother.

24:42 David> Well, that's the one question.

24:44 Can she bake that pie?

24:46 [laughs] Dan> Well, we know we can.

24:48 Kevin> That's right.

24:49 David> As long as you got the Dyehouse cherry,

24:51 and when you taste that, you know the Dyehouse will live on.