Currants – Black

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Black currants have a savory, astringent, and subtly sweet taste suited for fresh and cooked preparations. Raw Black currants can be tossed into green salads or used as an edible garnish over main dishes and desserts. Most Black currants will have a tart, only subtly sweet nature, lending their sour taste to various cooked preparations. The berries contain pectin, allowing them to be simmered into jams, jellies, and syrups, and the mixture is often cooked with sweetener to enhance the complex flavoring. Black currants can also be cooked with sugar and used as a filling in pies, crumbles, pudding, turnovers, and other baked goods. For a refreshing treat, try blending and freezing Black currants into sorbet, ice cream, or popsicles. In addition to sweet dishes, Black currants complement savory dishes and are popularly heated into sauces for roasted meats. The berry’s natural acidity, full-bodied nature, and tangy taste complement fresh herbs in side dishes, or they can be made into a vinaigrette to drizzle over leafy greens. In England, Black currants are customarily added to mince pies during the holiday season, and they are also infused into juices, wines, cocktails, and cordials. One of the most famous uses of Black currant is in crème de Cassis, a French liqueur traditionally combined with sparkling white wine or champagne to create a Kir Royal cocktail. Black currants pair well with honey, herbs such as sage, thyme, and mint, vanilla, spices including cloves, ginger, and cinnamon, fruits such as strawberries, apples, pears, and raspberries, and meats such as pork, venison, and duck.Black currant may be the most nutritious fruit of all. While most superfruits are high in specific nutrients, black currant is exceptional in the full range of nutritional components. Data from USDA shows that volume-for-volume in terms of minerals compared to blueberry, it has nine times the calcium, five times the iron, four times the magnesium, nearly five times the phosphorous and four times the potassium; in terms of vitamins, it has 18 times the vitamin C and four times as much vitamin A. Black currant also has more than twice the anthocyanin content (second only to aronia) and twice the flavanols of blueberry. A study at the University of Glasglow (Borges et al, 2010) found that black currants had a higher antioxidant capacity and anthocyanin content than blueberries, rasperries, cranberries and red currants.Black currants are a source of vitamin C to strengthen the immune system, vitamin K to assist in faster wound healing, and manganese to develop connective tissues. The berries also provide magnesium to regulate nerve functioning, vitamin E to protect the cells against free radical damage, phosphorus to form bones and teeth, and other nutrients, including potassium, B vitamins, calcium, and zinc. During World War II, Black currants were notably used in syrup to provide infants with a daily dose of vitamin C in England. The war was creating a shortage of vitamin C-filled fruits, so the British government turned to cultivate Black currant shrubs as the species thrived in their climate and had high vitamin C. Black currant berries were transformed into syrup in 1942, and the mixture was given to children under the age of two. After World War II, Black currants were also used to flavor cough syrups throughout Europe.

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July

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