SC - Digby's Excellent Cake

[David Friedman]

>I'm lost. Should this be given time to rise?

Not as we do it.

>Why all the yeast if there's no time
>to rise?

I've wondered if, in the original of such recipes, it is actually serving a
nutritional purpose. Think of it as a useful residue from beer making. Lots
of vitamins as I remember.

>David said the other day that zante currants aren't really currants, can
>I get real currants anywhere?

Etymologically I think it is the other way around--raisons of corinth are
the original "currants" and ribes fruits borrowed the name. So the dried
currants you buy in the store probably are what a medieval recipe intends.
I don't know how early they started calling ribes "currants;" you might
want to check the OED to help you figure out which meaning your recipe
intends.

Ribes currants are occasionally sold at the sort of store that has lots of
varieties of fruit, and you can grow them.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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