Week 28: Redcurrants, Maud Grieve, The Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station

Fig. 1. “Fay’s Prolific,” from Fruit Culture, Volume 2 (Scranton, Pennsylvania: International Textbook Company, 1913), Section 19.

Waning Crescent Moon; 21 Days to August Cross-Quarter Day

Headnote

After a week off to make some progress on my book of hours project, we continue our regularly scheduled berry programming with another red one adored by my oldest son.

Unlike the misleading serviceberry, which is in fact a pome, the red currant or (if you’re British) redcurrant is a true berry. Indeed, all true currants, whether red, black, white, or pink—and no matter which of the more than 60 varieties extant globally—are berries. However, the dried, raisin-like “Zante currants” commonly available in stores are not really currants at all but a type of grape made into raisins since antiquity. The currant genus (Ribes) includes many species that are red, and some of these are native to North America. Yet most commercially available red currants in the U.S. comprise a mix of three varieties that are native to Europe, in part because currant plants were mostly banned in this country for more than a century (see below). Confused yet?

Thankfully, Ribes rubrum, as the most common edible species of red currant is called in Latin (and would be named in Dr. Seuss books), is a simple plant. To propagate it, you need only chop a few branches and stick them into dirt or water. They lack complex or extensive roots and have botanically simple leaves (one piece per stem, versus a compound leaf with leaflets). Currants also have associations with the simplicity of peasant culture; although they were foraged in the wild for thousands of years, currants were not really cultivated intentionally until around 1600 (perhaps earlier in Russia).*

Yet the brilliance of their jewel-like strigs and racemes also make them suitable accoutrements for aristocrats. They are perhaps best known in jelly or jam form, including the English sweet-and-sour condiment known as Cumberland Sauce (the origins of this name are much debated), which is similar to—but supposedly not inspired by—the cranberry sauce of North American provenance. An especially sophisticated preparation is to individually select the currants and manually remove their many tiny seeds using a sharpened feather quill, which leaves the orb intact within a thin sugar jelly. But you are much more likely to encounter a strained or filtered jam. In fact, many home cooks leave not only the seeds but also the stems intact during processing, because they add both natural pectin (a thickening agent) and a slightly astringent quality to the finished product. Red currants are also popular as a juice, often in combination with other fruits, and may serve as a digestive aid.

As noted above, currant plants were banned from the U.S. in 1911 to protect pine trees and, therefore, the timber industry; currants are the primary alternate (non-pine) host for a forest-devastating fungus, white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola). They are still heavily restricted in many regions today. For example, it is illegal to grow black currants anywhere in Massachusetts, and a permit is required to cultivate other currants (at least notionally; enforcement seems limited, at least in the gardens I frequent).

Fig. 2. “Red Dutch. Raceme and detail of flower.” The Red and White Currants. Wooster, Ohio: Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, 1923.

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Readings

1. Description: This plant is equally at home in hedges and ditches, trained against the wall of a house, or as a shrub cultivated in gardens. It has straggling stems, three to five lobed leaves, yellowish-green flowers, and fruit in pendulous racemes. The smooth berries are always red in the wild state, but cultivation has added the white and champagne or flesh-coloured varieties. The White and Red Dutch Currants are regarded as the best. The English name was given because the berries were like the Corinth or Zante Grape, the currant of the shops. There are between thirty and forty kinds of currant recognized in catalogues. The fruit is a favourite for tarts and jellies, and being a very hardy plant, is within the reach of all. The juice is a pleasant acid in punch, and was a favourite ingredient in the coffee-houses of Paris, where the sweetened juice is still preferred as a beverage, to syrup of almonds.

   Constituents: The juice is said to contain citric acid, malic acid, sugar, vegetable jelly and jam.

   Medicinal Action and Uses: Refrigerant, aperient, antiscorbutic. The juice forms a refreshing drink in fever, and the jelly, made from equal weights of fruit and sugar, when eaten with ‘high’ meats, acts as an anti-putrescent. The wine made from white ‘red’ currants has been used for calculous affections.

   In some cases the fruit causes flatulence and indigestion. It has frequently given much help in forms of visceral obstruction. The jelly is antiseptic, and will ease the pain of a burn and prevent the formation of blisters, if applied immediately. Some regard the leaves as having emmenagogue properties.

Mrs. M. Grieve. “Currant, Red.” A Modern Herbal. London, England: Jonathan Cape, 1931. n.p.

2. The paramount use of the currant is in making jelly, for which purpose it is unsurpassed. The red varieties are preferred owing to their higher color, but it is said that if white currants are scalded before pressing, they make a rich, red jelly, not as dark as that from red varieties, but very handsome. The fruit, either green or ripe, makes excellent pies or sauce. It is especially satisfactory when used in combination with fruits which lack sprightliness or acidity. With a few currants added, even the Russian mulberry becomes a most appetizing fruit, and the juneberry seems to be all that one could wish. The currant supplies the requisite acidity, and these fruits furnish the richness of flavor which the currant lacks. In canning it preserves its qualities intact, so that it is nearly as available in winter as in summer. Currant shrub is a pleasant summer drink, made from the ripe fruit crushed and compounded like lemonade. The juice is said to be very useful in soothing fevers. At one time the fruit was reported as having a steady demand in St. Louis for use as a flavoring in soda water.

Fred W. Card. Bush-Fruits: A Horticultural Monograph of Raspberries, Blackberries, Dewberries, Currants, Gooseberries, and Other Shrublike Fruits. New York, New York: Macmillan, 1903 (1898). p. 351.

Supplementum

• “Cumberland Sauce.” Cook’s Info (Oct. 4, 2020).

• Molly Watson. “What Are Currants? A Guide to Buying and Cooking With Currants.” The Spruce Eats (March 18, 2024).

• Jonathan Townsend, “18th-Century Currants.” Townsends (July 7, 2014).

• George Bunyan. "Red Currants.” Helpful Hints for Hard Times: Gooseberries and Currants for Market. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1895.

• M. L. Fernald. “Ribes vulgare and its Indigenous Representatives in Eastern North America.” Rhodora: Journal of the Botanical Society of New England 9.97 (January 1907): 1-4.

Fig. 3. “A currant bush before pruning,” Currants and Gooseberries: Their Culture and Relation to White-Pine Blister Rust (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmer’s Bulletin 1398, September 1929), p. 10.

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✦ From the Earthly Book of Hours ✦

• Lord knows that you don’t need another app or feed in your life, but it is possible to save the Earthly Book of Hourswebsite to your phone’s home screen for easier access. Just navigate to the main page (“The Current Hour”), look for the Share button, and select “Add to Home Screen.”

• New this week in the Doldrums (3pm-6pm): readings from William James (1842-1910) and Robert Burton (1577-1640); an early depiction of neurons from Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934).

Fig. 4. Doldrums (3pm-6pm), from The Earthly Book of Hours.

* One commentator locates currants’ emergence into written history near the introduction of the printing press into Europe.