FACTS ABOUT CHERRIES

                             FACTS ABOUT CHERRIES

1. Since the 1930s, the UK has lost over 95 per cent of its cherry orchards. Most are now imported.

2. The Roman general Lucullus is said to have pledged suicide in 56BC when he realised he was running out of cherries.

3. Lucullus had presented cherries to Europe in 72BC and entitled the cherry tree ‘Cerasus’ after a village of that name in what is now Turkey.

4. The world record for spitting a cherry pip is 93ft 6.5in, set by Rick Krause of Michigan in 2003.

5. Rick’s son Matt Krause won this year’s “Cherry Pit-Spitting Championship” at Eau Claire, Michigan, with a spit of 41ft 6.5in into a headwind.

6. According to the authorized directions of the contest “Contestants’ hands should remain below the shoulders (to bypass popping one’s cheeks)”.

7. Turkey makes more cherries than any other homeland. The United States arrives second.

8. According to study on ‘trolley-snooping’, cocktail cherries in a shopping centre trolley is taken to mean: ‘I am rather superficial and pretentious.’

9. Cherries were entitled state fruit of Utah in 1997.

10. The cherries from an average cherry tree are sufficient to make 28 cherry pies.