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Preserve

To Keep Currants

A method of preserving currants by drying, packing in bottles, sealing with cork and rosin, and storing neck‑down.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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To Keep Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure bottles are perfectly clean and dry.

  2. Gather currants on a dry day, preferably under the trees.

  3. Cut currants from large stalks, leaving a small bit of stalk on each.

Bottle and store

  1. Gently drop currants into the bottles.

  2. Stop the bottles with cork and rosin.

  3. Store the bottles neck down in a trench in the garden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Currants
The fruit being preserved, sealed airtight in the bottles to keep it from spoiling.
New velvet corks
Seal the bottle necks so air cannot enter and spoil the fruit.
Rosin
Sealant applied over the cork to make the closure airtight.

The step that matters

Stop the bottles with cork and rosin. Preservation depends on keeping air out, so the cork and rosin must seal the neck fully. Any gap lets air in and the fruit can spoil.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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