Show the currant before it Is I 1 pried dried I 1 must confess that I 1 have always blindly supposed when I 1 thought of it at all that the currant of the plum pudding was the same fruit as the currant of our gardens that slightly acrid red berry which grows on bushes that follow iho the lines of back fences bushes that havo have patches of weedy ground under them where hens congregate I 1 fancied that by somo some process unknown to me at the bands hands of persons equally unknown perhaps those who bring flattened raisins from grapes these berries were dried and that they then became the well known ornament of tho the christmas cake it was at zante that roy my shameful ignorance was made clear to me hero I 1 learned that the dried fruit of commerce is a dwarf grape which has nothing in common with currant jelly its english name currant is taken from the french raisin de do Corin corinthe tho or corinth grape a title bestowed because the fruit was first brought into notice at corinth we have stolen this name in the most unreasonable way for our red berry then to make the confusion worse I 1 as boon soon as we have put the genuine currants into our puddings and cakes wo we turn around and call them sl si the real currant the dwarf grape 0 of f corinth is about as larga large as a gooseberry w when hen ripe and its color is a deep violet black the vintage takes place in august it is not a hardy vine it attains luxuriance nr uri ance I 1 was told only in greece and even there it is restricted to the northern the shores of the gulf of corinth and the ithe ionian islands constance fenimore woolson in irl harpers |