Show 254: Currants and Gooseberries

Today, we discuss the medicinal and edible use of the ribes family, which is one of my absolute favorites... but illegal in North Carolina!


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The name down to the clan, the clan to the.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Hey, y'all, welcome this week's show. Today we will talk
about a plant that I brought up I don't know,
two three weeks ago, maybe a month, and it is
the Rebay's family that includes currants and gooseberries. Now, if
you happen to listen to that episode record a few
weeks ago, you may remember that in the state of

(01:51):
North Carolina it's illegal to grow currents and gooseberries. Yes,
the same plant that's grown in forty nine other states approximately.
It may be a little I'm not sure we'll grow
in Florida. Maybe it's a little too hot there, but yeah,
I mean basically forty nine other states. The same plant

(02:15):
that's grown in nearly every country in the entire world
is illegal in North Carolina. Why is that Well, because
there is a very slim like less than five percent
chance that one of them could have a bacteria. Can't
remember if it's a b I guess no, Well, it's

(02:38):
a plant disease of some sort. I'd have to look
it up. But it's a rust if I remember correctly,
that could infect Christmas trees. Hmm. Well, you may ask
yourself doesn't. Aren't there other states that grow Christmas trees? Yes,
there are many other states that grow Christmas trees. Aren't
there other countries that grow Christmas trees? Yes, there are

(03:02):
many other countries that grow Christmas trees. Do they ban
currants and gooseberries?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Know?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
And oddly enough, they've never had their crops of Christmas
trees wiped out by whatever little fungus, whatever it is
that may potentially grow on a current or gooseberry. Okay,
so really it is idiotic. Actually, where I live in
the mountains of North Carolina, we grow a whole lot

(03:30):
of Christmas trees because in the nineteen seventies they decided
to transition everybody away from growing tobacco and cabbage to
make sauerkraut, and they decided the state decide to subsidize
the Christmas tree industry. Well, when you give the government
control of anything, they the didn get to regulate everything
around it, and they outlawed currents and gooseberries. Now, there

(03:53):
are old homesteads within a rock throw of big Christmas
tree fields I know of that have currants and gooseberries
still growing on them. People were growing them there before
the Christmas tree industry ever got going in the nineteen seventies.
They've never infected the Christmas trees and they never will.
But if I were right now to go to my

(04:15):
home in North Carolina and the mountains and the Blue
Ridge Mountains right near the Blue Ridge Parkway and plant
a currant or gooseberry, if someone from the state found
out about it, they could come burn it and find
me a lot of money. So I don't grow currants
and gooseberries, even though there's some my favorite fruit, which
just goes to show you how stupid government is. Less

(04:39):
government you have, the more freedom you have, the more
things make sense. As Ronald Reagan said, the scariest words
in the English language are from the government, and we're
here to help now. Currents and gooseberries delicious for eating,
especially the gooseberry, just eating out of hand. Currants are good,
but they're a little more tart. Both are fantastic for cooking,

(05:03):
for making jelly and et cetera. Wines you name it.
I mean gooseberry is a little bit larger, you get
a little more fruit for bush, and so gooseberry wine
absolutely classic, really one of the finest non grape wines
there is, and you may have thought before you've seen

(05:26):
in a recipe it calls for dried currants a fruitcake,
for instance, or maybe it's a cookie. Welsh biscuits, Welsh cakes,
they usually have currant cinemas are delicious. Well, actually those
are not dried currants. Those are actually a type of raisin,
if I remember correctly, they're known as Corinthian raisins or

(05:48):
raisins from Corinth. So the current that you may see
in a recipe, which is of dried fruit it goes
in a cake or cookie, is usually not the same
current as is in the rebased family, which grows on
a bush. However, the two are rather similar in taste,
in texture, and there are some recipes that actually called

(06:10):
for dried currants. It's just not very often anymore. You're
not going to see that in a cookbook, say newer
than nineteen hundred. Cooksbooks from seventeen hundreds eighteen hundreds may
actually call for dried currants. Rather difficult to find in
the United States in their dried form, easy to grow,

(06:31):
and really if you're not in North Carolina, you can
probably grow all you like and really enjoy them. But
as I said, gooseberries make a very good wine. Probably
the finest wine of England is gooseberry wine. They don't
grow very good grapes here at all. They do grow

(06:51):
good apples and pears. And anywhere that you can grow
good apples and pears, you can also grow good gooseberries
and currants. Well, let's get into the medicinal properties. So
we'll start with discordies. He describes a plant. Of course,
we don't have to worry about that. You can just

(07:12):
google it as you're listening to me. As for medicinal uses,
he says, the leaves of both currents and gooseberry, all
of them, he says, are effective rubbed on for aerysipolis,
which is an inflammation of the skin, and herpes viral
skin infection. Of course, it is said that the branches

(07:32):
laid against gates or windows drive away the enchantments of witches. Well,
one thing you may not know about North Carolina, especially
if you consider the cities of Asheville and Boone, North Carolina,
we probably have more witches per capita than anywhere else

(07:53):
in the entire United States. North Carolina got a lot
of witches, wickens, whatever you want to call them. We
got tons of them. We probably I mean, if you
were to take like religious groups per number, of course,
the state is overwhelmingly Protestant. Catholics are really catching up.

(08:15):
But I would say there are probably more witches and Wickans,
which or pagans, and or the three of them combined
would probably make probably the third largest group of religious
affiliation in North Carolina, were there such a thing as
an affiliation for that group of people. There are certainly

(08:35):
more witches and Wickens than there are Buddhists or Hindus
or Muslims, and we actually have a lot of those
three groups. We have a lot of Buddhists, especially in
the Asian communities around Charlotte Hickory. We have a lot
of Muslims up around Durham and Chapel Hill, and a
fair amount of Hindus, probably not that many. Actually, probably

(08:59):
more be High Behigh Barrith and Hindus. But if you
were to count witches and Wickens as an ethnic group
and various affiliated Pagans, I'd say that North Carolina probably
has a greater percentage than most any other Southern state. Well,
certainly i'd say we have a higher percentage than any

(09:20):
other Southern state, and probably more than most other states.
Maybe Oregon would beat us California, New York maybe. Yeah. Anyway,
so maybe for the reason for that is because we
can't grow gooseberries and currents because according to diascurities, they

(09:45):
drive away the enchantments of witches. So take that with
a great assultant for what it's worth. But North Carolina's
really messed up in that regard. We got a lot
of colleges, we got a lot of liberals, we got
a lot of hippies, and a lot of Pagans. There's
no doubt about that. And they're not. I mean, you
might say, well, hey, North Carolina has like thirteen Indian tribes. No,

(10:10):
the vast majority of Native Americans in North Carolina are
Southern Baptist or Methodists, a few Presbyterians, a few Pentecostals.
In the entire Lumbe tribe in North Carolina, which is
fifty thousand people, there may be three Pagans. You know,
in the entire Cherokee tribe of North Carolina, which is

(10:34):
a little less than ten thousand people, there may be
a fifteen to twenty Pagans along the among the let's
go with a hundred, let's just throw it out there,
we'll give a big number. I doubt it, Helia Soapony,
I don't think there's an entire one. The Wakama, probably
not a single one. Yeah, you know, the so called

(10:59):
pagans here North Carolina are white, spoiled, rich kids with
college educations. So there you have it. Anyway, He says
that if anyone picks up the ramnus, which is any
of the rebased families, the Goosberry and currents, while the
moon is decreasing it and holds it is effective against

(11:20):
poison and mischief, and it's good to carry around them
and maybe put around ships. It is also good against
headaches and against devils in their assaults. Again, who knows,
We've probably got a lot of devils here in North Carolina.
I don't doubt that at all. Are just judging by
our crime rate. It is also called Percepphonian or we

(11:42):
don't need to get into all that all right. So
Gerard fifteen hundreds of England said the fruit of it
is used in diverse sauces for meat, and those who
are skilled in cookery can tell better than myself. Apparently
Gerard was not a very good cook, and he admitted
to that, but yeah, especially the current sugar to get

(12:03):
sort of almost like a linen berry or cranberry sauce,
which is just excellent. You know, fatty meats and game.
Gooseberry is gonna be good, especially with duck and goose,
any kind of anything in the fowl. Gooseberry just comes
really well with wild fowl. He says that both are
using broth and can be substituted for ver juice. Bear

(12:26):
juice is the juice of unripened grapes. It's sour like vinegar,
but it's not. It doesn't taste like vinegar. It tastes
like sweet juice. That juice isn't sweet. No, it's kind
of hard to describe. It's like the difference between lemon
juice and vinegar. And it's very good. It was used
in a lot of old recipes, not used much at

(12:50):
all now, but would have been very common even just
a few hundred years ago. He said. It maketh the
broth not only pleasant to taste, but is greatly profitable
to such that are troubled with a hot burning agu
In other words, it helps bring down fevers. He said.
They are diversely eaten, but howsoever they be eaten. They
always engineer raw in cold blood and nourish nothing or

(13:12):
very little. They stay the belly in stunch the bleeding. Well,
actually they're quite nutritious, really one of the very best fruits.
You could look more in the wild where you could
have growing on your property. But they are a bit
of stringent, and they well, they stop diarrhea and internal bleeding.
They could also cause constipation in one amount. Or in

(13:34):
the other hand, you could eat so much you get
so much fiber. You know, that works as a laxative.
So I wouldn't worry too much about that. But he
does mention that they stop the minsias and they have okay,
and that is again, in moderate amounts taken, the stringency
will stop any kind of bleeding and help any kind

(13:55):
of flux or diarrhea. The ripe berries, as they are sweeter,
do little or nothing to mind. Okay, So the ripe ones,
he's saying, the immature berries are more prone to cause
constipation than the ripe ones. The juice of the green
gooseberry cooleth all inflammations, including Saint Anthony's fire, which was

(14:19):
apparently like shingles. Basically, they provoke the appetite and cool
the heat of the stomach and liver, and the young
and tender leaves eaten raw and salad provoke urine and
drive forth the stone and gravel. Yes, the leaves have
a diuretic effect, so also good for kidney stones bladderstones
such as that. About one hundred years later, Colepepper said,

(14:41):
the berries, while they are unripe, being scalded or baked,
are good to stir up fainting or decaying appetite. So
similarly the appetite excellent. Well, he's got a lot of
different It's old English, so I'm trying to translate us.
A go reserved them with sugar in they last all year.

(15:02):
Decoction of the leaves is good for swellings and informations.
Saint Anthe's fire. The gooseberries being eaten are an excellent
remedy to allay the violent heat both of the stomach
and the liver. Young and tenderleves break the stone and
expel gravel from the kidneys and bladder. Interestingly, he said,

(15:23):
even in the sixteen hunters they were thought to cause
people to have worms. Well they don't. Interesting, Miss Gree
even the nineteen thirties says the black current could be
found wild throughout Yorkshire into Scotland. We don't have them
really wild here, the transplanted. They were brought in by

(15:44):
our ancestors to be grown. Said. The berries are sometimes
put into brandy like black cherries, and the Russians make
a wine of them with or without honey, and a
drink was made which when young, makes spirits that resemble brandy.
And the leaves could be turned into a tea which

(16:06):
could be a substitute for black tea or Chinese tea.
Hid The goats are specifically fond of the leaves, but
as far as medicinal uses diuretic, diaphortic and febrifuge basically
diuretic means you, you know, increases yourination, gets rid of
excess fluid and diaphratic and febrifree which made it cells
with fever. She also mentioned that the juice could be

(16:29):
boiled with sugar and makes a good basically a cough
drop for inflamed throats. The leaves are cleansing and diuretic,
yeah good for dropsy and hemorrhoid hemorrhoids and blattering kidney stones.
She uses a recipe for black currant jelly which is delicious.
It is one of my absolutely favorite, absolute favorite jellies

(16:53):
on a buttered biscuit. Black currant wine very similar. Basically,
you just keep cooking down the same mixture to make
a jelly, or turn it off, let it cool, ad
some yeast to make some wine. Three quarts of juice,
the same amount of water, three pounds of sugar. That's

(17:15):
a lot of sugar actually, and that in her time
the sugar wouldn't have been as pure, so I'd probably
cut that in half put in a cask. And she
was just using, of course, the juice from the air,
but you know, I mean the yeast from the air.
But of course we would use a commercial yeast. You
could use the YaST, the natural yeast of the air, absolutely,

(17:37):
but you're also probably gonna get some a cedar bacteria,
and you're just as likely to get a vinegar, probably
even more likely to get a vinegar than you would
a wine. She talks about the difference between black cerries
and red currants and says the red was better for
cooling the body and had more and see which made

(18:01):
it good for scurvy, good for flatgness and ingestion. I
helped with the poisons, removing the toxicity from the body.
And of course gooseberry is a larger berry and just
more worth your time. If you're trying to make like wine,
you want a lot of juice or jellies. But you know,

(18:25):
if I had to pick, I'd go with some good
currants and you know, just grab a handful and have
alongside some food. But yeah, I really do like some
currant jelly. Actually, medicinal actions and uses of gooseberry formally
said to cure all inflammations, the greenberry specifically as stringent

(18:49):
as a spring medicine, gooseberry is more valuable than rhubarb.
In one of many books on the plague posed in
the sixteenth century, the patient is rare recommend the gooseberry's
so yeah good basically as a mild lacks of had
to bring down fevers and to get rid of urinary gravel.

(19:12):
Essentially all right, So moving on to about nineteen hundred
and nineteen twenty, brother Aloisious said both of the black
current will start there. Both the leaves and the fruit
are used medicinally. Both remedies are diuretic and recommended for
painful urination. Black current remedies are stematic, diaphoretic, and good
for throat infections, maagrain, intingestion drops in rheumatism. As for

(19:37):
gooseber beerry, he said people with acid stomach should not
eat gooseberry. It is highly recommended for those suffering from
invulnary seminal discharges or lucorehea, and also stimulates appetite. Skipping
ahead quite a bit. To King's Medical Dispensatory of eighteen
ninety eight. They say the black current is native of Europe,

(19:58):
especially from Siberia, and has now cultivated in this country.
Grows in cold, damp woods and bogs, but it can
also be cultivated in the garden under actions of medicinal
doses and usages. The juice of these berries, especially the
black Current, is said to be diuretic and diaphoretic. Diaphoretic

(20:19):
is fear of blooring. They may be made to a
jelly of jam or a paste. I do love black
current jam, I really do, and a very useful in
febril and antifla, in federal and inflammatory diseases and in
horseness and infections of the throat. The raw juice is
an excellent refrigerment beverage in febril or feverish conditions. A

(20:40):
decoction of the bark of the black current has been
found proved useful in calculus affections as bladderstones, kitty stones,
urinary gravel, dropsy, and hemorrhoidal tumors. It may be used freely.
The French prefer a liqueur from the berries called casisse yes,
they do, and casise crim casis just casis is like,

(21:04):
it's in my top ten. I mean it's not something
I buy ever, because it's kind of pricey, the good
stuff imported, but it's absolutely fantastic. It's one of those
things like I don't buy because I probably couldn't stop
from sipping on it. It's delicious. He talks about there
is a wild black current in America and says it's

(21:27):
pretty much interchangeable, but a very different plant actually now
getting up to modern times. And they also mentioned that
wild back current or buffalo berry grows most prominently in
Missouri and was actually a wild food that they took

(21:48):
advantage of early settlers. It's like eighteen ninety eight was
a fair number of people in Missouri, but you know
they still would have remembered the settler times plants for future,
says dismal use of red currant. The fruit is anti scorbutic,
and that means it has vitain. See, it's good for scurvy,
apparent purative, digestive, diuretic, laxative, refrigerate, and seolagog. Okay, what

(22:14):
have we not defined here? Good to settle the stomach,
good for digestion, diuretic, good for fevers, cooling, laxative, silagog
simulates saliva. So the leaves contain the toxic hydrogen cyanide.

(22:38):
So yeah, just like your apple. Well, okay, what's the
one coming to, oh, wild cherry cherry? A little bit
of cyanide in that, and it's actually has you know, cough,
suppressive quantities. We don't use enough to actually poison ourselves.
So but you need to know about that. And I
wouldn't take a very strong extract of the leaves of

(23:00):
red currant. A decoction of them is used externally to
relieve rheumatic symptoms. They are also used in poultices to
release sprains and reduce the pain of dislocations. Now, as
for gooseberry, the fruit is laxative. Stewed unripe gooseberries are
used as a spring tonic to cleanse the system. The

(23:23):
leaves have been used the treatment of gravel and infusion
taken before the monthly periods. It's said to be a
useful tonic for growing girls. In other words, it can
bring on delayed mencies that can go and hasten things along.
The leaves contain tannin and have been used as a
stringent to treat dysentery and wounds. So yeah, very very

(23:46):
very useful. Really one of my absolute favorite fruits and
completely illegal where I live. If I go ten miles
to the west, I can grow gooseberries and currents. If
I go what thirty five miles to the north. That
means if I go to Tennessee, just across the line,
I can throw a rock and hit Tennessee. I can

(24:08):
grow gooseberries and currents legally. If I go a half
hour north into Virginia, I can grow gooseberris and currents legally.
If I go an hour and a half south into
South Carolina or North Georgia, I can grow gooseberries and
currents legally. Here in the Land of the Free and
the Home of the Brave, if I grow gooseberries or currents,

(24:33):
a neighbor can wrap me out and they come raid
my property as if I was bootlegging or making drugs
or something, if I had a pot farm. It's probably
actually not that much more of a penalty for growing
marijuana on your property than there is Gooseberri's and currents
in North Carolina. Just two different agencies you're going to

(24:54):
have to face. And anyway you look at it, you're
either going to pay a big fine or and end
up in jail. And if you try to protect your property,
they're gonna shoot you. And there you have it. So
here we are on the land of the Free and
the home of the brave, and you can get killed
or imprisoned for growing gooseberry. So hey, if it makes

(25:17):
sense to you, it doesn't make sense to me. It
doesn't make sense from a logical perspective, especially since these
Christmas trees they brought in have helped introduce a parasite
that's killing all our native like white pines and hemlocks,
and they're having to go out and spray with lots

(25:39):
of chemicals on them just to try to save the trees,
both the crops and our native trees, and they're poisoning
the water, and we actually have higher insurance rates in
my county than most other counties because Christmas trees require
so much chemical sprayed on them that well, it gives

(26:00):
people cancer. I mean, you know, I like a Christmas
tree as much as anybody else, but it takes a
whole lot more chemicals than tobacco or cabbages ever did.
And given the option, I'd just rather have some gooseberries
and currents. I mean, honestly, the original Christmas tree was

(26:25):
a hawthorn. I'd be happy with that, but I mean,
I certainly don't mind a fraser fur or blue spruce
or anything like that. But yeah, what costs. I mean, really,
we have really high cancer rates. And maybe this was
not the best idea. I'm just saying. But of course,
if I were to say that publicly, somebody would come

(26:46):
burn my house down. That's just the way things are
and the way things always have been, and you don't
rock the boat when it comes to the local economy.
I'd also like to see North Carolina have a fall turkeys.
In the rest of the country pretty much, when it
comes time for Thanksgiving dinner, you can go out and

(27:07):
shoot a turkey and dress it out and put on
your table. North Carolina just has a spring turkey season,
which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But there are a
lot of things that don't make a lot of sense
around here, like the river across the street from my house,
which according to state law is open to fishing and

(27:28):
cannot be declared a private property and closed if it's navigable,
meaning which means which means if I can go up
it or down it in a canoe or a kayak,
it's navigable. But they've got it marked off as a
private fishing club, and the millionaires that control that put
enough money in the county government and the state government

(27:48):
that that's where all the game wardens are making sure
the Hillbillies don't get to catch trout even though our
tax dollars pay to stock it. I'm off or I
can America great again, but we need some help in
North Carolina, and we need a big time. But anyway,
y'all have a good one and I will talk to

(28:12):
you next time.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
The information of this podcast is not intended to diagnose
or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or
write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm
not a doctor, the US government does not recognize the
practice of verbal medicine, and there is no governing body
regulating herbless Therefore, I'm really just a guy who stays herbs.
I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that

(28:37):
anything I write or say is accurate or true. I
can tell you what earths has been traditionally used for.
I can tell you my own experience, and if I
believe in herbs helped me, I cannot, nor would I
tell you to do the same. If you use an
herb anyone recommends you are treating yourself, you take full
responsibility for your help. Humans are individuals, and no two
are identical. What works for me may not work for you.

(29:00):
You may have an allergy of sensitivity and underlying condition
that no one else even shares and you don't even
know about. Be careful with your health by continuing to
listen to my podcast or read my blog you read it.
Be responsible for yourself, to your own research, make your
own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever.