Red currants

Back in July, I harvested about half the currants that grow in my back yard. I first learned to love these tangy jewels of fruit when I lived in Germany as a teen, and it turns out that this is probably where currants originated, some time in the late Middle Ages.

The German name for currents is Johannisbeeren, which refers to the date when they are generally ripe and ready to be collected: the feast of St. John the Baptist falls on June 24. This explanation was given by Leonhart Fuchs in his New Kreuterbuch (new herbal), published in 1543. Similar names are used in other herbals from about the same time,

One of the earliest references to currants comes from 1328, where in the “gardens of the castles of Mathilde [Mahaut] d’Artois (1268-1329), comtesse d’Artois et de Bourgogne, women were employed to maintain the gardens and to keep the planted rows of roses, grapes and red currant in good state”. (Red currant and black current, new cultivated fruits in late medieval and early modern Europe: Historic and archaeobotanical evidence). Another early reference is Le Menagier de Paris (late 14th C), where in chapter 2.2 on horticulture, point 35, the young wife to whom this book is directed is told “after the feast of the Nativity of our Lady (September 6), plant peonies, serpentine, lily bulbs, rose bushes and currant bushes,

The earliest image is in the central panel of the lower part of the Ghent altarpiece (The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb). The bushes are near the top right, just behind the white lily, near the crowd of women. This altarpiece was created by the van Eyck brothers and finished in 1432.

Another early image is A Bridal Couple, by an unknown painter from around 1460-1470, found in the Cleveland Museum of Art. The currant bush, with unripe berries, is to the right of the man’s leg.

The only pre-1600 recipe I know of comes from Franz de Rontzier in his Kunstbuch von Mancherlei Essen (1598), which Volker Bach has translated. Rontzier recommends a light batter, in which the currants (among many other possible fruits, herbs and plant leaves) can be dipped and then fried. After frying, they can be served plain or sprinkled with sugar.

Fresh red currants from my garden

I made these using one egg mixed with enough dough to give me a soft batter, plus a pinch of salt. I heated about 2 Tbsp of butter in a pan. Then I dropped berries into the batter and lifted them out with a fork and into the frying pan. I let them cook until the bottoms were firm enough to flip, then flipped them over to cook the tops before removing them to a plate. I sprinkled them with a bit of sugar and ate them all.

A plate of red currant fritters.

The berries got a little sweeter from cooking, but the real advantage was that a small amount went a long way. Currants can be painstaking to harvest, and they get eaten up very quickly. This way, a few provided a satisfying snack. I don’t know if each berry was to be fried individually, but I decided to use 3–4 at a time because they were easier to handle and other items using the same recipe were much larger, so it seemed reasonable,

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Fried Gourds from Martino

This recipe was a reminder about the importance of going back to original sources, and of patience. Zucchini is a new world vegetable, of course, but it is the most similar to medieval Italian gourds (calabash or bottle gourds: Lagenaria siceraria) before their skins harden. You can read more about Italian gourds here:

Various images of gourds from the Tacuinum Sanitatus

My first effort was done using the redaction by Barbara Santich in The Original Mediterranean Cuisine. Usually I am very happy with her writing, but this just didn’t work for me. She used lemon juice instead of verjuice, left out any mention of saffron (optional, but I love it), or the sauce. She also used fennel seeds instead of fresh fronds; fronds are harder to find, but it is in season so I would have made an effort to get some.

Frying large quantities of zucchini in olive oil required careful attention to ensure the zucchini didn’t burn. Work quickly, keep the temperature relatively low, and use lots of oil (I had to keep adding more, so used far more than the recipe called for). Clean out the pan regularly and start again with fresh oil if it starts to turn black.

Then I dug out the original recipe as translated in “The Art of Cooking: The First Modern Cookery book” (Ballerini and Parzen), p. 68:

Fried Squash. Take some squash and then cut crosswise into slices as thin as the blade of a knife; and then bring them to a boil in water and immediately remove; and then let set until dry. Sprinkle with just a bit of salt, dredge in flour, and fry in oil. Then remove, and take a few fennel fronds, a little garlic, and some bread white, and crush well, and thin with enough verjuice to make watery, and pass through a stamina, and use this sauce to top the squash. They are also good topped with just verjuice and fennel fronds. If you want the sauce to be yellow, add a bit of saffron.

I did this recipe exactly as written, except for using fennel seed instead of fronds (I had already invested in buying a jar). I also used a half slice of fresh whole wheat bread since I didn’t have white on hand.

Fried squash with sauce

Fried squash sprinkled with verjuice and crushed fennel seed

I liked it both ways, with a slight preference for the version with sauce. It is definitely something that needs to be eaten right away. The zucchini loses its crispness very quickly. I cannot imagine making this for a large dinner; I used a single zucchini for the second trial and I just managed to get it nicely cooked before the oil started darkening . It almost felt like it would work better in a deep fryer (I used a lot of oil and had to add more twice as I cooked)

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