Last year and this year I planted a bunch of different kinds of berries.
Of the ones I planted last year I am getting some berries this year. Blackberries and elderberries will be a lot of them, but not here yet. I planted some raspberries in the fall and got a handful from a few of them. I got a handful of blueberries. I got three jostaberries which were good and I look forward to them. The chokeberry bush has a bunch on it but not ready yet.
What I did get a quart of was black currants. I can see that when fully producing it is going to be a very abundant bush. I didn’t pick them right away though. I had picked one and tasted it and it was terrible. I waited, thinking they might not be ripe even though the color had changed. After a week, one of our neighbors was visiting so I was showing her the currant bush. We both tasted one and she spit hers out it was so bad.
Googling, I found out black currants are not for fresh eating, though apparently the pink ones are, of which I also planted one, not bearing this year. They are used for jam and as flavoring for sauces. Many Americans have never even heard of them and for a long time cultivation of black currants was illegal because it is an alternate host for white pine rust. New York has only recently legalized their cultivation.
In Europe they are more popular.
I got a recipe I adapted proportionately to my quantity. It was as follows:
Black Currant Jam recipe
4 pounds black currants
3 pints water
6 pounds sugar
Add water to currants and cook until they break down and volume is reduced by 1/3.
Add sugar and cook for ten minutes or until the jam sets on a cold sheet.
What gives black currants the bad taste is they are very sour, but that sourness is an advantage when making jam because you don’t need to add any pectin, it sets easily by itself.
Result? Really great jam! The flavor is incredible. I took some to my neighbor who had spit out the raw berry and she could hardly believe it was the same fruit the jam was so good.
I might play with using less sugar because it is almost too sweet, but next year with the new growth I see on the black currant bush, the harvest will be lots more and lots of jam will be forthcoming.
I am guessing that for the chokeberries there will be a similar scenario when they ripen.
July 6, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Was long time back used to buy them dried like raisins. For snacking and baking…
July 8, 2010 at 10:15 am
I had a few dried naturally and tasted them but still so acidic. I wonder if they treated them with sugar before/after drying?
July 9, 2010 at 2:08 pm
I was DUPED
SunMaid’s website says they’re not really currants but zante grapes??!!
Currants are a dried form of a little black Greek grape. The word comes from the French expression “raisins de Corinthe” meaning grapes from Corinth. They are a completely different fruit to blackcurrants, white currants and redcurrants.
Try them for baking I guess
July 10, 2010 at 8:22 am
Interesting. That does solve a little anomaly because I seem to also
remember eating dried currants and they weren’t half bad.
July 20, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Her in the UK the family has grown blackcurrants for years. This season we had a crop of 15lb from 4 bushes.
You can eat blackcurrants freshly picked straight from the bush and they are delicious. However, you do have to leave them on the bush for a couple of weeks after they have turned black. They increase in size and will soften a bit. At this point they are still a little sharp but quite pleasant eaten fresh.
Some of the crop is used straight away in blackcurrant flan or blackcurrant and apple tart. The rest can be frozen to make the same or jam later. Lovely to have a taste of summer in mid-winter.
Redcurrants or whitecurrants are also fantastic and make wonderful jelly or a currant and raspberry tart.
Or mix the 3 berries with raspberries and strawberries for a sunny summer pudding.
I would always have currant bushes in my garden – huge crops of delicious versatile vitamin rich fruit from a small space.
July 21, 2010 at 7:17 am
Well, I did wait a couple weeks after they turned black and I can only say it is either a matter of taste or perhaps there is varietal difference between various black currants, because mine never got to the point I would eat them fresh. :-)
I also planted one red and one white currant and I have read that they are eatable fresh, but they didn’t produce yet.
Do you have a recipe for the black currant flan?
August 20, 2011 at 5:48 pm
“Disease is an experience of so-called mortal mind. It is fear made manifest on the body.”