Cornelian cherries for primitive raw sorbet

[2014 - 116 02]

The fruit of the Cornelian cherry tree is very acidic and astringent if not perfectly ripe. It is said that people made marmalade, wine, alcohol or salted appetizers with those fruits.

I found 2 other uses (not really prehistoric) : let them freeze, and

1) eat them frozen !

Curiously (?) they are frozen but not hard at all (just a little), contrarily to what happens with water at the same temperature. Do they contain some anti-freeze substance ? Something important to protect the seed from the frost ? Same thing for every kind of fruit ?

And, even in the not-ripe-enough fruit, the acidity seems greatly reduced, as well as the astringency, but they are still there, just enough to make this icy "food" addictive :-)

The acidity and astringency are perceptible again when the fruit returns to room temperature.

2) use them as ice cubes to refresh drinks

Advantage : they don't melt in liquids ;

Disadvantage: they drop to the bottom of the glass, and the refreshed liquid won't go to the surface (you'll have to stir the drink...).

Last experiment : verify if the seeds have resisted to the freezing episode and can still germinate. Results : later...

[ cornus mas cornouille cornouiller mâle European cornel European dogwood Cornolio 山茱萸 Cornejo macho セイヨウサンシュユ Кизил обыкновенный Кизил мужско́й ]