the.com/blackcurrant
the berry America banned for decades, then forgot how to crave
means A small, dark purple-black berry with a sharp, tart, intensely aromatic flavour, prized in Europe for cordials, jams, and liqueurs.
from A plain compound of "black" plus "currant" — and "currant" itself is a small etymological trick. It comes from the medieval "raisins of Corauntz," meaning dried grapes from Corinth in Greece. When Europeans later met these little dark berries, they borrowed the word "currant" because the fruit resembled those tiny Corinthian raisins — so the name travelled, by sheer resemblance, all the way from a Greek port to a northern hedgerow. "Black" simply distinguishes it from its red and white cousins.
- us ban
- Outlawed nationally in 1911 to protect timber
- flavor exile
- Why Americans don't know that purple candy taste
- vitamin c
- Up to four times more than oranges
- pine threat
- Hosted a fungus that killed white pines
- ribena
- British wartime kids drank it for nutrition
ribena — british blackcurrant juice concentrate, launched 1938, still the world's most popular blackcurrant drink
new zealand blackcurrant ban — growing blackcurrants was banned in the us from 1911-2003 to protect white pine trees from blister rust
cassis — french blackcurrant liqueur from dijon, protected aoc designation since 1925