Sour cherry soup is a slightly sweet soup made with

sour cream Sour cream (in North American English, Australian English and New Zealand English) or soured cream (British English) is a dairy product obtained by fermenting regular cream with certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, ...

, sugar and whole fresh sour cherries, and served chilled. Originating in Hungarian cuisine, this soup is a summer delicacy in several European cuisines. The dish has been adopted by the

Austrians , pop = 8–8.5 million , regions = 7,427,759 , region1 = , pop1 = 684,184 , ref1 = , region2 = , pop2 = 345,620 , ref2 = , region3 = , pop3 = 197,990 , ref3 ...

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in C ...

, Slovaks, and

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Hungarian-American Hungarian Americans ( Hungarian: ''amerikai magyarok'') are Americans of Hungarian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau has estimated that there are approximately 1.396 million Americans of Hungarian descent as of 2018. The total number of people wit ...

s and

Hungarian-Canadian Hungarian Canadians ( hu, kanadai magyarok) are persons in Canada of Hungarian ancestry. According to the 2016 Census, there are 348,085 Canadians of Hungarian ancestry. The Hungarian minority is the 24th largest ethnic group of Canada. The b ...

s brought the soup to North America.June Meyers, ''Authentic Hungarian Heirloom Recipes'' In Hungarian cuisine, sour cherry soup or ''meggyleves'' is a soup made from the fruits of the sour cherry tree (''Prunus cerasus''), and not from sweet cherries. The name is formed from 'sour cherries,' and meaning 'soup.' It is traditionally served as a dinner course, usually as either the

appetizer An hors d'oeuvre ( ; french: hors-d'œuvre ), appetiser or starter is a small dish served before a meal in European cuisine. Some hors d'oeuvres are served cold, others hot. Hors d'oeuvres may be served at the dinner table as a part of the m ...

, soup or dessert, on warm summer nights or for hot summer luncheons. The soup is cooked with whole sour cherries, including the pits. Sour cherry trees are numerous in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

, and the soup is a good example of the quintessentially Hungarian fusion of Eastern/Asian influences and traditional Continental European cuisine. It is customary that the soup contain fresh sour cherries, fresh cream and sometimes cloves and cinnamon. Canned regular cherries are sometimes added and sour cream is often substituted for fresh cream. A small amount of sweet white or dry red

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

is also sometimes added before serving. Packets of dried powder are also sold in Hungary.

References

Hungarian desserts Austrian cuisine German cuisine Slovak cuisine Slovak soups Cold soups Cherry dishes Vegetarian cuisine Appetizers Sour cherries {{Slovakia-cuisine-stub

See also

References