What are blackcurrants for? Making jam and jelly, most of us would say, for you do see the pots, but you don't find many of the berries in those little plastic containers that strawberries and raspberries come to us in. A young friend has just written in to say that surely the blackcurrant is one of the best fruits to eat. And, of course, full of vitamin C. A gardener from Harold's Cross, Dublin, was delighted when buying his house there to find four or five bushes, variety Wellington XXX. Some of these were moved, or even taken out, as the exigencies of garden design dictated. But they were replaced in part by a new variety, assured by the garden centre to be bigger, better, etc. Pie. The berries were big, and even reasonably profuse, but the taste was a poor imitation. The entirety, say five pounds or so, was harvested over a couple of weeks in mid-July. The scene then changes to Conamara where the gardener has frequently visited an old cottage, in front of which, for many years, a small blackcurrant bush had survived. While searching a ditch for blackberries (still too few and immature), he decided to look at the old bush. The top contained a few dried fruits, but the bottom branches groaned with exquisite large berries, all well concealed by a thriving clump of Montbretia. A few minutes' work brings in a bowl sufficient to make a summer pudding. But a further attempt that evening to harvest more is repelled by the midge. This small bush is 40 feet from the sea, in an open field grazed by cattle and sheep. However, our correspondent does point out that its bounty may be partly due to his having pruned some elderly branches the year before and liberally applied cow pats over such roots as he could see.
Jane Grigson in her Fruit Book (Penguin Country Library) deals exhaustively with black, red and white currants. Cook, historian and good anecdotist, she tells us that the French don't find blackcurrants appealing, except for the drink or drink basis (cassis) they have given their name to. "I think there is an explanation. Cassis, berry by berry, were swallowed as a substitute for imported cassia pods, senna pods, that is to say." (A purgative or emetic.) "One French writer in 1727 wrote that blackcurrants had a savour of bed bugs. . ."