[Sca-cooks] red currents

[Holly Stockley]

Part of the problem is that most period preserve recipes are jams, rather than jellies.  And currants are seedy.  Not in an eat-the-seeds sort of way, either.  Nor big enough for a spit-out-the-pits sort of way.  So they're kind of hard that way.

You might try mixing them with an equal weight of dry ice in a (propped open) cooler until the freeze, and saving them until feast season.  They'll thaw with a texture very similar to fresh.  Or use them for a fruit paste.  












And from slightly post-period, A True Gentlewoman’s Delight, 1653: "To make Paste of Goosberries, or Barberies, or English Currans.  Take any of these tender fruits, and boil them softly on a chafing- dish of coales, then strain them with the pap of a rotten Apple, then take as much sugar as it weighes, and boil it to a Candie height, with as much Rose-water, as will melt the sugar, then put in the pap of your fruit into the hot sugar, and so let it boil leasurely, till you see it reasonable stiffe, almost as thick as for Marmalet, then fashion it on a sheet of glasse, and so put it into the Oven upon two Billets that the glasse may not touch the bottom of the Oven, for if it do, it will make the paste tough, and so let it drie leasurely, and when it is dry, you may box it, and keep it all the year."
(Working on the article, Stefan, I promise.  I'm slow sometimes)
Femke


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> Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:59:21 -0400
> From: tudorpot at gmail.com
> To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] red currents
> 
> Thanks, I read it yesterday- did not see any recipes for preserves, 
> several mentions of use in various dishes as an ingredient.
> 
> Freda
> 
> Johnna Holloway wrote:
> > You might try this article in the Florilegium _*currants*-msg - 
> > 9/20/08_ *Medieval* *currants*. *Red* or black *currants*,
> >
> > Johnnae
> >
> > tudorpot at gmail.com wrote:
> >> I just picked three quarts of red currents- as I'm new at this my 
> >> period cookbooks are limited to one! So if anyone has a period recipe 
> >> for these- preferably preserves, as there is no feast in the near 
> >> future, I'd appreciate it.
> >> thanks,
> >> Freda
> 
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