Boil 1 quart of cherries until soft; sweeten to taste. Add some grated lemon peel, some cinnamon, 1 bottle of red wine and 2 bottles of water. Serve ice-cold with macaroons.
A Kaltschale in all but name: a thin, wine-sharpened fruit soup served cold as a first course or a dessert. The proportions are generous and the method leaves several things unsaid.
- Use sour cherriesMorello or Montmorency cherries suit the dish best. Sweet cherries give a flat, syrupy soup; if they are all you have, cut the sugar hard and add lemon juice as well as the peel.
- Pit them firstThe recipe does not say so, though cherry stoners were available. Pit before cooking, and reserve any juice that runs out.
- What a bottle meansA wine bottle of this period held roughly 750 ml, so two bottles of water is about 1.5 litres. The finished soup comes to well over two litres and will serve eight to ten in cups or shallow bowls.
- Wine choice and heatA dry, light red works well against the sugar. The recipe does not say whether the wine goes in hot or cold; adding it off the heat keeps the fruit flavour bright, while a brief simmer will drive off some of the alcohol. The soup remains alcoholic either way.
- SweeteningSour cherries with this much liquid will take roughly three quarters of a cup to a cup of sugar. Add it in stages and taste cold, since chilling flattens sweetness noticeably.
- CinnamonUse a stick rather than ground, steeped while the cherries cook and lifted out before serving. Ground cinnamon will not dissolve and leaves the soup gritty.
- BodyAs written this stays quite thin. Many German versions thicken slightly with a teaspoon or two of cornstarch slaked in cold water, or pass half the cherries through a sieve and return the pulp.
- The macaroonsAlmond macaroons suit this better than coconut ones. Serve them alongside so they stay crisp.
- ChillingGive it at least four hours in the refrigerator; the flavours need the time to settle.
Cold fruit soups belong to a family of dishes known in German as Kaltschale, literally "cold bowl" or "cold cup" — sweetened fruit, often steeped with wine or beer, served chilled in summer. Cherry versions are associated particularly with northern and eastern Germany, where sour cherries were a common orchard crop; similar soups are found east into Poland, Hungary and Scandinavia. The pairing with macaroons is practical: a dry almond biscuit gives the spoon something to work against in a soup with almost no body.