when they taste so delicious?? i tried not to smell them as i ate them, but i became nauseated
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 31 July 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)
Well yes, but if you prepare the roast right...
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 31 July 2006 20:28 (nineteen years ago)
Who would want picking blackcurrants to smell any different from how it does? Yet from the leaves, the twigs and the berries arises a note that is undeniably pissy. But the elusive pleasure that comes from recognition thrives on the smell that belongs only to those rather few occasions when we picked blackcurrants in the dim and distant. The blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum) is as nearly as possible a plant that man has found it impossible to improve; it was already perfect for us. The bush produces no thorns, relying on its tomcat-scented leaf-glands to deter browsers. Though often found growing wild in dampish places in Britain it does not seem to have a heartland here and the strong suspicion is that it has been introduced.
Hardly any plants, and I suppose no northern ones, have evolved with us in mind – by “us”, I mean large apes. The blackcurrant berries grow all over the bush, but with particular luxuriance towards the wetter west and the sunnier south. (In this garden there are four bushes in a row, but nearly four of the five punnets we picked came from the south-western end of the south-western bush.) Since they ripen so early, a shady canopy is needed for the berries, and this is supplied by the newer and larger leaves, which arise in a spiral around the shoots and provide a solid defence against direct sunlight. Even on a hot day like this, the berries are perceptibly cool.
The flowers require cross-pollination to produce fruit, and this is said to be the work of bees. It can’t be the colour that attracts them.
The berries are meant to be eaten, mainly by small creeping birds, not the flocking types. The intention is plainly to distribute the seeds far and wide in the guts of many small creatures. The spiralling habit, which extends to the racemes on which the berries follow the flowers, is complex and more than adequate to ensure that no simple creature, however hungry, will be able to locate all the berries. The berries are black and easily missed in the shadows. That’s partly why the blackcurrant suits us; it does not need netting, for we alone are clever enough, and our hands are clever enough, to break the code and strip the whole bush to its last berry, an illuminating exercise in understanding the complications of a branching structure.
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 31 July 2006 20:34 (nineteen years ago)
I believe the real questions is "why does babies' puke smell like back currants, yet taste so disgusting?"
― IPSISSIMUS (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 31 July 2006 21:47 (nineteen years ago)