Blackcurrants

This year in the garden has been clouded by the sad absence of the normally reliable plums and peaches (and almonds and apricots too). This is the first year they have all completely failed me and was due to a very mild and spring-like January that brought them out of dormancy, to be followed by the more typical chilly winter weather in February and March. The new growth managed to hang on (if somewhat dejectedly) until it was hit by some unusually late and hard frosts in April, which killed it stone dead. The peaches also had to deal with severe Peach Leaf Curl on top of this, to the point where it looked like some trees might actually die. It was the first time I have seen whole tree branches completely bare in May. As some compensation for this lack of stone fruit, this has been the first year when I have had enough Blackcurrants to make a worthwhile harvest. It is still nowhere near enough, but I’m still taking cuttings to grow more.

Blackcurrants are native to northern Europe and if you look around a supermarket there you will find them flavoring all kinds of products: soft drinks, pies, jams, wine, cough drops, candies and more. They are so common that it was surprising for me to come to this country and find that they are almost unknown. This is partly because they are grow best in cooler climates (they are more popular in Canada) and partly because it has been illegal to grow them in many places. They are an alternate host for White Pine Blister Rust and it was thought that preventing their growth would reduce this disease (this didn’t really work out and so happily it is no longer banned in most places).

Another reason for their lack of popularity is their unusual flavor. They are barely edible raw, with a sour and almost unpleasant taste and I’m sure many gardeners have got no further than one taste. I have been trying to cultivate a taste for the raw berries for several years and can now eat a couple, but I never eat them by the handful as I do blueberries or raspberries. The secret to Blackcurrants is that they have to be cooked with a significant amount of sweetener. Do this and an astonishing bit of culinary alchemy occurs and their wonderful earthy, tangy, sour/bitter flavor comes flooding out.

Blackcurrants are very easy to grow and can be very productive. Though native to cool northern climates they actually grow very well in my garden in California. They tolerate the hot summer days without any problems that I have noticed and even seem to tolerate drought pretty well (they may look pretty bad at the end of a long dry summer, but come back strong the following spring). You could plant them as a deciduous hedge or in a forest garden. Another bonus is that birds don’t like them very much. Yet another one is that they are very easy to grow from hardwood cuttings, just cut them in fall, stick them in the ground and they will root by spring.

I found it difficult to decide whether to use my precious fruit for pie or preserves, two of my favorite treats since childhood. I eventually decided on Blackcurrant jam, the ultimate gourmet preserve, because I figured it would last a lot longer than a pie. A quick search online turned up a recipe that didn’t include an absurd quantity of sugar (some use 2 part sugar to one part fruit!). It consisted of 5 cups berries, 4 cups sugar, ¼ cup lemon juice and 2 cups water. I didn’t have any lemon juice so I substituted ½ cup of orange juice and reduced the amount of water accordingly. Some Blackcurrant recipes say you have to remove the little brown calyx from each individual berry, which would take an absurd amount of time, but fortunately they are wrong, you don’t have to. I just removed the few remaining green stems and then rinsed them in water. All the debris and most of the unripe berries then floated away, leaving clean ripe berries in the bottom. Blackcurrants are loaded with pectin (as well as vitamin C and a variety of powerful phytonutrients) so you don’t need to add any extra.

Making the jam didn’t take long. I just boiled everything together for 20 minutes before realizing I was supposed to boil the fruit and water for 10 minutes, then add the juice and sugar and boil for 10 minutes more. It didn’t seem to make any difference though, it still worked out great. The final product was even better than I expected, sweet and yet sour, with the musky earthy flavor that Blackcurrants are renowned for. Good enough to win a prize at the county fair (if only the judges could appreciate Blackcurrants).