[Sca-cooks] Roysonys of courance

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Mar 1, 2006, at 2:16 AM, otsisto wrote:

> My local health food store carries dried black currants and they  
> are the
> currants and not the zantes. I was a bit surprised as gooseberries  
> which are
> related don't seem to dehydrate real well. The store can't get  
> dried red
> currants.
> I did get a taste of homemade chocolate covered (dehydrated) red  
> currants
> (clusters) and cranberries from a friend whose cousin made them for
> Christmas gifts one year. So I think it is possible.

It is surely possible now, but that doesn't mean it was possible, let  
alone practiced, anywhere in medieval Europe. Let's think about it  
this way: where, in medieval Europe, would there have been a regular  
supply of red or black currants and the kind of warm, sunny, breezy  
climate commonly associated with the drying of fruit? I'm trying to  
picture the famous local red currant crops of Malaga, Provence, or  
Turkey, or Lebanon, or Tunis, and all I'm getting on the Wayback  
Machine's screen is snow and static... not much better luck when we  
look for the booming raisin industry in Herjolfness. See what I mean?

> -----Original Message-----
>> 2) Dried black and/or maybe red currants
>
> Apparently that can't be done (she says, eyeing her bottle of black
> currant syrup - made from real currants)

Perhaps the above was a bit of an overstatement, but the gist, which  
is that the necessary combination of raw materials and suitable  
conditions for drying did not exist in period, with a long tradition  
of conserving and otherwise moist-preserving this fruit as supporting  
evidence for the claim,   is probably pretty accurate.

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04