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. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 18:13:37 -0700 From: david friedman 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 http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 10:55:21 -0700 From: david friedman 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 http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 19:02:16 EDT From: LrdRas 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. >> 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 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 Østgardr, East Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 17:54:20 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roysonys of courance To: Cooks within the SCA 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roysonys of courance To: Cooks within the SCA 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. • Genus Ribes, family Grossulariaceae: numerous species, including black currant and red currant. • a berry from such a shrub. ORIGIN Middle English raisons of Corauntz, translating Anglo-Norman French raisins de Corauntz 'grapes of Corinth ' (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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roysonys of courance To: "Cooks within the SCA" 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roysonys of courance To: Cooks within the SCA 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] elderflowers & Currants To: "Cooks within the SCA" 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 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 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 > 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 Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Chawettys To: Cooks within the SCA 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 >>> Edited by Mar S. Harris currants-msg Page 10 of 10