SC - re:period recipes and sources/mustards

[Kallyr]

In a message dated 5/3/98 5:25:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
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. >>

<Sigh> 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 lift 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


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