Old-Fashioned Fruit Garden by Jo Ann Gardner

Author:Jo Ann Gardner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

As for the charge that black currants have an undesirable flavor, I am convinced that most gardening writers in the United States have never tasted black currants in any form. Those few people who do go out of their way to try black currants are well rewarded. The late American gardening writer Lewis Hill once said that he and his wife were “converted to the taste when we bought a jar of ‘confiture de cassis,’ black-currant jam, in Canada.” When I sent Hill a sample of our dried black currants, he was more than enthusiastic: “We are certainly going to expand our production. They are great!” Update: The Hills went on to breed and select black currants at their Greensboro, Vermont plant nursery. The variety Hill’s Kiev Select is one of Lewis Hill’s selections.

What exactly is the flavor of black currants? In 1944, the great American horticulturist U. P. Hedrick said that the black currant has an “assertive flavor and aroma . . . it is most pleasant to eat out of hand or in culinary dishes.” Others have called its taste “musky.” It is certainly assertive, but I’m not sure about musky. The word musky usually carries negative overtones, yet it also describes the appealing scent of many flavors.

To be honest, however, I think that black currants must be processed to be properly appreciated. Gardeners and commercial growers in Europe understand this well, although the British do enjoy a dish of fresh black currants and cream for breakfast. In any case, British children are as familiar with morning glasses of black currant juice as American children are with orange juice. In Europe, black currant is a highly prized flavoring for cordials, liqueurs, wines, desserts, and candies; rum with a shot of black currant syrup, I’m told, makes an incomparable drink.

Finally, are black currants worth growing? If you know nothing about a fruit except that it is a carrier of a dreaded disease (like Typhoid Mary) and tastes funny, you may well conclude that it is not. But if you have ever tasted black currant jam, jelly, wine, juice, or the dried berries, if you have ever seen a bush drooping under the weight of its fruit you will search from one end of the country to the other to find just one rootstock to plant in your garden. If you can find the real thing, in whatever form, on the shelves of a specialty shop or in the pages of a British mail-order catalog, you can make up your own mind about the flavor of black currants. And from there, you can decide whether to grow them.

Update: Since I wrote the above, some states have lifted their ban on growing black currants, while others have loosened restrictions in certain counties. Some states confine the planting of black currants to rust-resistant varieties, but the lists vary. The best advice is to consult your local Cooperative Extensive office (see Appendix) to find out about specific restrictions in your area. Although there

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