SC - Re: currants

[Nanna Rognvaldardottir]

Cairistiona wrote:

>Then again, isn't Zante an island fairly close to Corinth, or has my brain
>gone wandering again?


It is indeed one of the Aegan islands and Edgar Allan Poe once wrote a
sonnet to it. Zante raisins are grown especially for drying into currants.

I found the following interesting tidbit in C. Anne Wilson´s Food and Drink
in Britain - she is quoting the Venetian ambassador to Britain, writing home
in 1610, when there was fear of a reduction in Greek currant exports:

"Such a thing cannot take place without discontenting the entire population
of England, which consumes a greater amount of this fruit than all the rest
of the world; being accustomed to the luxury and loving it so dearly that
individuals have been found who, from lack of money to purchase it on
certain high days and holy days when it is customary fare, are said to have
gone out and hanged themselves."

Nanna