currants-msg - 9/20/08
Medieval currants. Red or black currants, not "raisins of Corinth"
NOTE: See also the files: grapes-msg, fruits-msg, Period-Fruit-art, berries-msg, grape-leaves-msg, drying-foods-msg, fruit-pies-msg, plums-msg, cherries-msg.
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Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 18:13:37 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Dried currents
At 9:09 AM +1000 5/1/98, Robyn Probert wrote:
>>So... if currants in period recipes are the little grape raisins, were *real*
>>currants (red or black) used in period? and if so how were they referred to?
>>-brid
>
>In many period recipies (esp 14th and 15th century) they are referred to as
>"raysons of coraunce" (spelling varies) - ie "raisins of currants" as
>distinct from raisins of grapes.
I think you have it backwards. "Raysons of coraunce" means "raisins of
Corinth" means "dried zante grapes." My guess is that our "currants" got
called that because they were vaguely similar to raisins of Corinth, i.e.
little grapes.
David/Cariadoc
Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 10:55:21 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Dried currents
>but which came first?
Raisons of Corinth.
According to the OED, the term was transferred to the Ribes fruits, which
were introduced into England sometime before 1578, when they are mentioned
by Lyte as the "Beyond sea gooseberry." They were vulgarly believed to be
the source of the dried "raisons of Corinth. Lyte calls them "Bastard
currant" and both Gerard and Parkinson protest against the error of calling
them "currants."
Useful book, the OED.
David/Cariadoc
Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 19:02:16 EDT
From: LrdRas <LrdRas at aol.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Dried currents
meliora at macquarie.matra.com.au writes:
<< raysons of coraunce' makes more sense to me as dried currants.
What's the logic behind your statement Ras?
Drake. >>
<Sigh> The word currants is a relatively recent addition to the language.
Coraunce is generally known to be Corinth. The dried Zante grape was imported
and used very early in medieval recipes and came from the general
Mediterranean area where Corinth is located. It also grows well and
prolifically in that climate.
Although modern "currants" are native to Scandinavia, cultivation of the fruit
we now know as currants beginning in the 16th century (e.g., see "Food by
Waverly Root), I find it very difficult to believe that the widespread use of
dried modernly named currants would have been either practical or commercially
feasible if the source of the fruit was the wild plant.
Actual examples of the use of modern "currants" do not appear, SFAIK, anywhere
in the existing body of medieval recipes. And given that commercial production
of modern currants began outside the generally excepted dates of medieval
culture, I find it difficult to imagine it's general use in the middle ages.
Alternatively, in a dried form modern "currants" are very similar in
appearance to the traditional Zante currant (e.g., raison of Coraunce). It
would have taken little imagination to apply the original name of the
more expensive Zante import to a locally grown commercial crop especially when
that crop looked like and could be used in place of the original item.
Hope I hgave been clear here but it is sometimes difficuolt to summerize
several dozen pages of examples and information into a couple of paragraphs.
Ras
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 13:33:30 -0500
From: Phlip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: [none]
> With all the recipes I have seen that reference currants, and having
> picked my share of ripe currants in late summer, I remain confused as
> to why these berries are refused as a possible food source??
> Especially in places that didn't necessarily have their own grape
> vines to make raisins from?? How far off-track am I?
>
> Tyrca
I wouldn't call it off-track. Probably the biggest reason for believing
references are to grape-y currants rather than black/red currants is
that raisins of courance/corinth/etc. is almost invariably specified,
and while Corinth was known in period for growing grapes, it has, and
SFAIK had, no reputation for growing currant berries. Also, most dried
fruit is (or was) sun-dried, and the parts of Northern Europe where
currants (berries) grow aren't especially suited for that kind of
processing.
Adamantius
¯stgardr, East
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 17:54:20 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Dried Currants
LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> snowfire at mail.snet.net writes:
> << So the word "rayson" means "dried" or something?
>
> Elysant >>
>
> rayson equals rison which is indeed the name used for a dried grape.
>
> Ras
raisin < M.E. & O.F. reisin < L.L. racimus < L. racemus, meaning a
cluster of grapes
Small dried grapes (presumably dried on the bunch) were brought from the
Mediterranean Basin to places like England, where they were known as
"raysouns of Courance", or some variant thereof.
Possibly larger dried grapes came from elsewhere, and weren't considered
Corinthian.
It's very unlikely that the currants referred to in the medieval English
recipes are referring to anything other than dried grapes, for a variety
of reasons among them being:
1. English cookery of the period calls for a lot of dried Mediterranean
fruit, such as plums, figs, dates and raisins, as well as raisins of
Corinth. None of these are local items, and they are there both for the
romance of their imported status and also for their sweetness, something
the English seemed to prize more than the French, the Italians, and the
Germans.
2. While red and black currants do seem to have existed in the British
Isles, Britain is really not a terrific place for drying fruit, given
its climate. I believe there are a few references to drying apples, but
not many, and I've seen no references to berries having been dried. I
suspect they're more likely to have been either eaten fresh or made into
country wines.
I have no idea why red and black currants are called currants; my
dictionary suggests they are so named due to their resemblance to the
small, dried "Corinthian" grapes. If this sounds implausible, I'll pose
a modern example of this type of equivocation: ever see the Python
routine about the self-defense against fresh fruit course? John Cleese,
as the instructor, uses the term "red currant" and "raspberry"
interchangably, having his students charge at him with deadly
raspberries, using a Bengal tiger, as I recall, to defend himself. He
says the great advantage of the tiger in unarmed combat is that 'e eats
not only the fruit-laden foe, but also the red currants.
Adamantius
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 13:43:17 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roysonys of courance
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
On Feb 27, 2006, at 1:08 PM, Sharon Gordon wrote:
> A post on another list reminded me to ask about Roysonys of courance.
>
> I've been told these are
> 1) Currants, probably black ones
> 2) Dried black and/or maybe red currants
> 3) The tiny black currant grapes that look rather like currants
> 4) Dried versions of the tiny black currant grapes that look rather like
> currants
>
> How do you know what to use when?
A raisin is a type of grape. Raisins of Corinth, dried currants, and
Zante currants, and variations on those names, probably refer to #4
above. Most medieval recipes will refer to raisins of courance when
the little dried grapes are wanted, and raisins of the sun, or great
raisins (as opposed to small) when ordinary dried raisins are what is
intended.
Red and black currants are, I believe, technically berries, and they
don't seem to turn up that often, if at all, in medieval recipes. I
suspect that medieval England (which I mention because English
recipes seem to call for raisins and currants more often than French
and German ones, AFAICT) wasn't a big center for the dried fruit
industry, nor _really_ suitable climactically for sun-drying fruit on
farms.
While this is probably an over-simplification, recipes, more often
than not, when they refer to currants in English, anyway, are going
to be calling for a dried, imported product, or fresh or conserved,
red or black currants (must check some late-period sources), which
latter are more likely to be a local product, in season if not
preserved.
Are we confused yet? ;-)
Adamantius
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 00:35:43 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roysonys of courance
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
On Mar 2, 2006, at 9:59 PM, Daniel Phelps wrote:
> Seriously, though, we can be pretty certain that a period English
> recipe calling for raisins of Courance is referring to dried grapes
> of the little variety found on some Mediterranean islands like
> Corinth and Zante.
>
> Okay lests we not see what it obvious, i.e. the forest for the trees
>
> roysonys of courance
> raisins of Corinth
>
> Hmmm... raysonys are raisins could courance be Corinth?
>
> Did this get noted in a previous post that I missed?
I didn't specifically mention it, but I may have been remiss in not
stating something I thought was, if not obvious, at least highly
likely. What I did was to use them fairly interchangeably, though.
FWIW, I found this in Apple's Webster's Dictionary application that
comes bundled with recent versions of OS X (I have an edition of the
OED on disk, but it would require rebooting to get at it):
currant
noun
1 a small dried fruit made from a seedless variety of grape
originally grown in the eastern Mediterranean region, now widely
produced in California, and much used in cooking : [as adj. ] a
currant bun.
2 a Eurasian shrub that produces small edible black, red, or white
berries. Ĩ Genus Ribes, family Grossulariaceae: numerous species,
including black currant and red currant.
Ĩ a berry from such a shrub.
ORIGIN Middle English raisons of Corauntz, translating Anglo-Norman
French raisins de Corauntz Ôgrapes of Corinth Õ (the original
source).
This doesn't state with much clarity that the etymology of the term
"currant" as it applies to the red and black berries derives from the
little dried Mediterranean grape, but it seems evident that that is
the case. I then have to wonder what the berries were called in
England before the little dried grape was a common import item.
Ah, well, Anne Hagen just became bedtime reading, I guess...
Adamantius
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 08:05:36 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roysonys of courance
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
One of the things left out of most of the dictionary entries is the primary
range for currants is in the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The
OED states that using currant for the fruit of the Ribes was a transferance
that occurred after the importation of the plants into England some time
prior to 1578. In 1578, Lyte refers to them as "Bastard Currants" and
"Beyond sea Gooseberries."
A pre-17th Century English recipe calling for currants or raisins of
Corinth is most likely calling for Zante raisins.
The etymology in Old Norse might be interesting to track. German, for
example, uses Korinth and Johannisbeere as terms for currants. From my
limited knowledge, I believe Korinth would be the Zante raisin while the
Johannisbeere is "midsummer berry" as Johanni(s) translates as
"Midsummer Day," the Summer Solistice.
Bear
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 09:50:28 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roysonys of courance
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
On Mar 3, 2006, at 9:05 AM, Terry Decker wrote:
> One of the things left out of most of the dictionary entries is the
> primary range for currants is in the cooler regions of the Northern
> Hemisphere. The OED states that using currant for the fruit of the
> Ribes was a transferance that occurred after the importation of the
> plants into England some time prior to 1578. In 1578, Lyte refers
> to them as "Bastard Currants" and "Beyond sea Gooseberries."
That was more or less what I expected someone would turn up. Why name
a plant indigenous to a more-or-less Northern European country after
a Hellenic island? And if they _are_ indigenous, what did the Anglo-
Saxons or the Welsh call them? Rather, my assumption was that they
showed up at some point after the Middle Ages (or at the tail end),
and somebody in England decided they looked like currants.
> A pre-17th Century English recipe calling for currants or raisins
> of Corinth is most likely calling for Zante raisins.
>
> The etymology in Old Norse might be interesting to track. German,
> for example, uses Korinth and Johannisbeere as terms for currants.
> From my limited knowledge, I believe Korinth would be the Zante
> raisin while the Johannisbeere is "midsummer berry" as Johanni(s)
> translates as "Midsummer Day," the Summer Solistice.
Yep. Technically, Johannisbeere would translate as St. John's
Berries, and the Feast of Saint John is June 24th, I believe. But
close enough for government work, as they say. It's also, BTW, the
day Le Menagier says to start your compost, and the traditional
kickoff of the Danish herring season.
Now, the great advantage of the tiger in unarmed combat is that he
eats not only the fruit-laden foe, but also the red currant...
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 10:20:48 -0400
From: "Kerri Martinsen" <kerri.martinsen at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] elderflowers & Currants
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
I would like to disagree about the currants.
The red currant was first *cultivated* in Scandanavia, appearing in London
markets at the end of the 16th century.(1)
Rumpolt refers to "36. Turten von Johannesbeer." as opposed to "schwartze
Weinbeer" refered to in recipe #5 (both in the Turten section (
http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/tx/rumpturt.htm)
Weinbeer is a grape (schwartze=black) so a black grape would mostlikely be a
zante currant. (also seen in Sabina)
Modernly, *Johannisbeere* referes to "*fruit of shrubs of the genus Ribes
[rubrum or nigrum]". *When used without a color identifier it refers to red
currants by default.
An alterate modern word would be Ribisel (austria dialect).
The genus is native to Western Europe (Belgium, Germany, Netherlands,
Northern Italy, France)(2) and includes Gooseberries (referred to in #13.
Nim*b* *Grosselbeer*/ mach sie mit Zucker vnnd schwartzen Weinbeern).
Obviously a different fruit than the Weinbeern.
(side note: *"Grosselbeer." Stachelbeere (Ribes grossularia). Auf der
R?ckseite: "Wegdornbeer." Purgier-Kreuzdorn (Rhamnus cathartica). 2
Darstellungen auf 1 Blatt.
*Altkolorierte Holzschnitte auf ganzer Textseite von David Kandel aus
Hieronymus Bock "Kre?ter Buch" 1595. 32x20 cm. Blattgr?sse.
Its sounds like an intersting book within our period - source:
http://www.antiqbook.de/boox/wen/IQ-G26523.shtml)
Sabina refers to white currants in #72, at least in the title (weis?e
eipersberlen) as translated by David Friedman (3).
Sources:
(1) http://www.luvnpeas.org/edibility/edible4.html source:
Willis, F. Roy. *From Ancient Times Through the Seventeenth Century* 2nd ed.
Vol. 1 of Western Civilization: An Urban Perspective. Lexington: DC Heath &
Co., 1977. An enjoyable history text, of no particular horticultural value.
(2) http://www.uga.edu/fruit/ribes.html (brief history - not sourced)
(3) http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html
*note to self, more research......
This abstract might be worth buying ($25):
http://www.haworthpress.com/store/ArticleAbstract.asp?sid=C1BS64FL8L5H8MC26DTGN02WRRG80049&ID=31755
Vitha
On 6/3/08, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
wrote:
<<< Also, I've found references to currants but not the colors in recipes,
anyone know if the black ones are periodish or should I just save the red
ones for my SCA recipes? >>>
The extreme likelihood is that most of the currant references in medieval
recipes are to Raisins of Corinth, a.k.a. Zante currants, which are really a
small, dried grape. I won't try to rule out the use of red or black
berry-type currants, but it does seem like they're vastly outnumbered by
Raisins of Corinth.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 09:47:19 -0700
From: Lilinah <lilinah at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] elderflowers & Currants
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
While actual currants/Ribes show up in some recipes, i think
Adamantius is right in saying
<<< The extreme likelihood is that most of the currant references in medieval
recipes are to Raisins of Corinth, a.k.a. Zante currants, which are really a
small, dried grape. >>>
While Ribes/currants do show up in some SCA-period recipes. But
that's in a much smaller number of recipes than currants = raisins
made of grapes of Corinth, which are exceedingly common.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of real currants.
In 1967 when I moved to Manhattan to go to Barnard College, i
discovered Haagen-Dazs ice cream, back when they only made about 5 or
6 flavors (vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and rum-raisin ice creams, and
boysenberry sherbet) and were strictly local (i bought it at
Gristides, when their shops were fairly small). I also discovered
currant juice, imported from Germany. And i used to make a beverage
involving a scoop of Haagen-Dazs boysenberry sherbet, currant juice,
and fizzy water - that's when all I could cook was tuna salad and
spaghetti.
Now, for the SCA I make syrups of currant juice, usually black
currant, but sometimes red, to take to events, along with other
syrups made of lemon, pomegranate, and cherry juices (individual
flavors), and sometimes peach.
But in most recipes in the English, French, Spanish, Italian, and
Middle Eastern corpus (corpi?), the currants being called for are
those little dried raisins of Corinth. So I concur with Adamantius
when he said:
<<< I won't try to rule out the use of red or black berry-type currants, but
it does seem like they're vastly outnumbered by Raisins of Corinth. >>>
Since "real" currants are only useful in season, and to the best of
my knowledge cannot be dried for later use, the recipes using them
would be limited to when they would be fresh. I'm not questioning the
German sources that Vitha posted, and I'm glad to know about them,
since the Berkeley Bowl sells fresh currants/Ribes when in season
(but I haven't really memorized when that is - and when it is in
California may not quite be when it is in North Western Europe).
--
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 23:08:05 -0400
From: ranvaig at columbus.rr.com
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Sabina translation. Re: elderflowers & Currants
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Sabina refers to white currants in #72, at least in the title (weis?e
> eipersberlen) as translated by David Friedman (3).
This is posted on Cariadoc's (David Friedman's) website, but was translated by Valoise Armstrong. Let credit go where it is due.
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Medieval.html
Valoise Armstrong's translation of Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin
Ranvaig
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:20:43 -0400
From: euriol <euriol at ptd.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Chawettys
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Perhaps this will help.
The Zante currant (Vitis vinifera) or currant is a variety of small, sweet,
seedless grape named after Corinth (currant) and the Ionian island of
Zakynthos (Zante) and not to be confused with the Ribes berries "currants"
(eg blackcurrant, redcurrant, white currant) which are in a different
family altogether. Red currant is Ribes rubrum, Blackcurrant is Ribes
nigrum. The white currant is also a cultivar of Ribes rubrum (Red currant),
being merely a less sour and colourless variant of the red currant, and not
a separate species, though sometimes being named Ribes sativum or Ribes
silvestre, and sold as a different fruit.
The caution I was giving is that some suppliers today call the Zante
currant a black currant. If you want to know why... I'll show you the 7
pounds of Zante currants that I now have in my possession thinking I was
getting "black currants".
Euriol
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:31:45 -0500, wrote:
<<< This may confuse the matter when one says black currants as there
are black current that are not Zantes but when it says Raisens of
Corinth, it is zante raisens
-----Original Message-----
2) Raisins of Corinth, also called Black Currants or Zante Currants.
Euriol >>>
<the end>