Weichselstrudel (Sour Cherry Strudel)

There were maybe three weeks every summer when Gretel and my grandmother Eva would get excited about the same thing at the same time. The sour cherries were in. Weichseln, the Austrians call them, and if you've only ever eaten sweet cherries from a supermarket bag, you don't yet know what a cherry can be. Weichseln are smaller, darker, sharper. They taste like summer with something to say.

I remember Gretel pitting them at Eva's kitchen table in Kent, her fingers stained red to the knuckle, a bowl of fruit in front of her and a saucer of pits growing beside it. She'd pop one in her mouth every few minutes and wince a little at the sourness, then smile. The strudel that came out of those afternoons was the best thing I'd ever tasted. Thin, crackling pastry giving way to hot, jammy fruit that had just enough sugar to let the tartness sing instead of shout.

Weichselstrudel is a seasonal dish and I won't pretend otherwise. You make it in July when the sour cherries arrive, and you make it as many times as you can before they disappear. The window is narrow. That's part of what makes it special. Austrian cooking is honest about seasons, and this strudel belongs to high summer the way Zwetschkenstrudel belongs to autumn. If you can't find fresh Weichseln, jarred Schattenmorellen (preserved sour cherries) from a good German or Austrian grocer are a decent stand-in, but drain them well. The dough is the same hand-stretched strudel dough you'd use for Apfelstrudel: flour, water, oil, a splash of vinegar, rested and pulled on a floured cloth until you can read the newspaper through it. The filling comes together in minutes. What matters is the fruit.