ABSTRACT
Currants and gooseberries have been used for centuries as food and medicine. Currants were originally known as “corans” or “currans” in England, probably because the fruits resemble “Corinth” grapes (Card, 1907; Hedrick, 1925). Red currants were also known as “red gooseberries,” and the English name was “beyond-the-sea gooseberries.” The French and Dutch names groseilles d’outre mer and overzee indicate that the fruits may have been imported, possibly by the Danes and Normans (Card, 1907), although this point is disputed in the literature. Regardless of their origin, red currants were collected from the wild for medicinal use as early as the 1400s. Sturtevant (1887, cited by Hedrick, 1925) compiled one of the most complete histories of the domestication of currants. Many of the following citations were originally noted by Sturtevant.
