The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

In case you were wondering,

pmccool's picture
pmccool

In case you were wondering,

soda bread with currants makes really good toast.

You're welcome.

Paul

hansjoakim's picture
hansjoakim

Thanks, Paul.

;o)

proth5's picture
proth5

Settled then.  Our long national nightmare is over.

Pat

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

would it really be as good without the tiny raisins?  

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Ah jus' wanna be a blessin'.  Or some such silliness.

@ Mini: maybe, but it might require full-size raisins.  Or maybe some chopped figs.  Wait!  What about real currants?!

Paul

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

All currants are raisins but not all raisins are currants?   Currants are certainly specific.  I got a bag right here, soaked the little darlings and they sure were thursty,  100g  soaked up 40g of rum!  

Ah hav ta a'ways r'member thay is -ants and not -ents,  ants don't like water.  :)

An don't you worry none, you is always a blessin, Mr Paul !     

yozzause's picture
yozzause

Hi Mini are you sure it was the currents that soaked up all that rum!

best wishes yozza

pmccool's picture
pmccool

but they are not at all common.  The SunMaid Zante currants sold here in the States are dried grapes (very small ones, to be sure), not dried currants.  I ate black currant jelly while living in ZA and liked it but I don't know that I've ever had honest-to-goodness dried currants.  At $10-15 or more per pound, it may be a while before I do.

Paul

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

There, they are berries and if I don't get to them fast enough the birds do or they dry on the stem.  I have seen the hedgehogs feasting on the fallen ones.   For that price, go to your favorite plant nursery and order some bushes.  They come in white, pink, red and black.  A little bush in a sunny spot will get you lots of berries a few years from now.  The bushes like air circulation and lots of compost.  The ones I have here look more like the seedless grape variety and not the berry.

Mini

(Looks like my -ent and -ant spelling remembering trick got drowned in the current.)  

 

loafette's picture
loafette

Zante currants, (a variety of grape), are not in the same plant family as 'true' currants...the Ribes family includes gooseberries/currants/white, black, red, and a number of flowering shrubs. The dried grapes were originally shipped from the port of Corinth...they've been called 'raisins of Corinth', for centuries.  Over time the word 'Corinth' became corrupted, and ended up as 'currant'.

The true currants are not widely grown in the US, as they contribute to a particular rust fungus, which detroys certain pine varieties...:

 

http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/pub/php/management/whitepine/

Laura

 

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

The plants are much older, more world wide spread and complicated.  You can translate the following into English but one misses all the wonderful detail.   

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannisbeeren

World wide 140 to 160 varieties.  Most in the northern hemisphere but also in the Andes.  China has 59 varieties, 25 original.  North America has 53.  South America has less.   So I guess it is unfair to think they are not native to North America.  I have nothing against protecting the white pine varieties, but I also think native berries should be protected and preserved as well.  There must be a better solution than killing them.  I think if the pines were planted in a mixed forest instead of a mono culture, the trees would be less susceptible to many diseases creating natural barriers between trees.    Mono culture planting enhances is the problem.  It is a shame that a particular rust was introduced, interesting enough on white pine seedlings.  Big Timber is out to eradicate the berries instead of paying the price of introducing the disease.  They should be finding a better way all the plants can coexist.   

I bet there are some currant bushes that don't spread rust.  

loafette's picture
loafette

I'm with ya...you can EAT currants! Obviously the US timber/paper industry plays a big hand...we're not talking 'native growth pines', usually, but planted for harvest timber.

It really bugs me, to see what used to be mixed forests, cut over, and planted in pine, but that's a personal 'thing'! I used to live/still own property, close to the Jefferson National Forest, in VA, the Blue Ridge mountains...as you enter the area, the signage states 'Land of Many Uses'...I always wanted to sneak up, at night, and 'amend' the sign to read 'Land of Many Abuses'...

 

Back to bread...

Laura

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

you had for St Paddy's Day!.  Don't let Mini fool you either.  Currents should be soaked in Jameson's before they go in Irish soda bread. 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

and what a waste of Jameson!  For shame!   

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

depend on a stupid spell checker who speaks German as a native woof :-) Pouring Jameson's into a current would be waste!

gary.turner's picture
gary.turner

The old man lay dying. He called his eldest son to his bedside and made a request. "Would ye please remember me on my birth date each year by pouring a pottle* of fine Irish whiskey o'er me grave, then lay the pottle against me stone?"

"Oh, Da, of course. It will be my pleasure to honor ye in that way on your birth date. I wonder, though, would ye be mindin' if I drank it first?"

Depends, I guess, on the pre-proocessing before it hits the current.

 

cheers,

gary

* Pottle, an obsolete measure of 2 quarts/half-gallon, from which we get bottle.