The fruit soup with which I am most familiar is made with morello cherries, the light red sour kind also best in pies and jam. Indeed, it is a Hungarian delicacy, and the cream in question is the ever-popular garnish blob of sour in the middle of the bowl.

In Ottawa, where I used to live, there was once a lovely Hungarian restaurant with servers in embroidered blouses and a dark-haired gent playing the zymbalom -- very exotic in Ontario in 1970. I'm sure everyone involved in the business was a refugee from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Their menu had all the eastern European staples, for a wonder not adapted to Canadian tastes numbed by too many years of Kraft cheese and baloney, including cherry soup and chestnut mousse ... Oh, Lord, the chestnut mousse!