I don’t think I’ve ever even seen suet. I’ve tried to find it (I’m always experimenting with different chili recipes, and some call for suet as the browning-fat, instead of bacon grease or olive oil) – but none of the supermarkets around here carry it. I know suet is “the fat surrounding beef kidneys,” and I’ve always imagined it would have a consistency like Crisco or congealed bacon grease, but the mincemeat recipe you gave calls for “shredded suet,” so I suppose it’s something more solid than that.
So how are blackcurrants and redcurrants eaten? Fresh? Dried? Cooked in pastries? Made into jam, jelly or juice?
What’s gammon?
May I refer you to Delia again .
*The sultana differs from the raisin in two ways, one of which is fairly apparent. It is lighter in colour – the lighter the better, in quality terms – but it is also the sun-dried grape of one variety alone, the green, seedless Sultana grape of ancient (possibly Persian) lineage
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*Currants are small black grapes (often Zante or Corinth varieties) that have been dried. The same technique is used to make raisins and sultanas:
*
So Sultana and raisin from the large green grape . Currant from the small black grape
BTW Owl , I hope this isn’t one big wind-up
Most store-bought Christmas puddings and mincemeat use vegetarian suet ( what ever that is )
No, no, no. The two aren’t interchangable at all. Raisins and currants are different things, but they’re both dried grapes. Just different grapes.
A mixture of vegetable oils and flour by the looks of it.
Yes - all of those. Ribena is a blackcurrant drink - very popular here.
Redcurrants are also made into a a jelly served with meat (especially venison).
Its a hard white/yellow fat. As you say it surrounds the kidneys - it isn’t like lard, butter etc. It’s much harder. It does however melt down in pastry etc
No it’s not a wind up - I’m genuinely baffled. If I want to wind people up I’ll just start a “why are all Americans fat” thread
Let me get this straight;
Sultanas are the lighter bigger chaps made from green grapes- fine.
Raisins are the little black jobbies made from purple grapes - fine
Currants are also little black jobbies made from purple grapes - hmmm
So are currants and raisins the same bloody thing or not? If not what precisely is the difference?
At the risk of my own, and other’s, sanity:
The answer to this depends where you come from in Britain.
In England it is a cured pork meat that is thickly sliced and grilled or fried and served hot Often with either a fried egg or pineapple (posh).
In Scotland (certainly the bit of Scotland that my Mother’s family come from) it is a cured, cooked pork meat that is served cold in sandwiches etc - what we in England call ham.
What I was attempting to point out is that what one part of Britain may call something may be at variance with the names used elsewhere.
Like I say in Hampshire a currant is ALWAYS and ONLY something off a currant bush - however I am happy to accept that this is not the usage elsewhere.
But I would like to know what the hell the difference between a currant and a raisin is.
What most of the people above seem to be saying is that raisins, sultanas, and ‘currants’ are all dried grapes, just starting with different varieties. (BTW, if ordinary raisins start with green grapes like sultanas do, how do they get so black? I know stuff often darkens as it dries, but still…)
On the other hand, the ones on the bushes instead of vines are certainly currants when they’re fresh, and will continue to be so when they’re dried. It seems that either the ‘currants’ most people are talking about are a wrongly-labelled variety of raisins, or everybody else here is as confused as I am.
I’ll also throw a little more confusion into the bacon/gammon discussion. In Western Canada at least, there’s side bacon (the strips of streaky stuff) and back bacon (more like thin-sliced ham, even though it isn’t off the leg). Both are usually fried. In the US, I think back bacon is called ‘Canadian bacon’. In both places, AFAIK, if you just say ‘bacon’ you mean side bacon. Maybe back bacon is something like one or the other version of gammon.
More from Delia
*Raisin is quite a broad, generic term for a dried white grape. In the past most raisins would contain a few seeds because seedless grapes were uncommon. Now, raisins are usually seedless. A delicious exception are Muscatel grape raisins, which are large and light, with some of the scented character of the fresh fruit and a tiny seed or two. Lexia raisins are an extra-large Muscatel raisin.
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So Sultanas and Raisins are both produced from white / green grapes and currants from black grapes.
I think I have just lost the will to live.
Here is why all this dried fruit is dark in colour ( from Tiscali )
Grapes may be dried in the sun or artificially, using hot air. The dark colour of the dried fruit comes from the caramelization of natural sugars during the drying process. Drying reduces grapes to 25 % of their original weight, while retaining almost all the nutritional value of the fresh fruit.
In Agatha Christie’s famous mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Hercule Poirot is depicted as living in retirement in a country village and devoting his leisure to the cultivation of “vegetable marrows.”
I always thought these would be pumpkins. Are they actually zucchini (courgettes)?
I don’t think I have ever seen this sort of bush currant in dried form . To preserve them ( as OWL has said ) they are made into jams , preserves or drinks. If you tried to dry them I think you would end up with just a bit of skin and nothing else. They they seem to be about 95% liquid with a very thin skin and hardly any flesh ( unlike a grape )
And currants aren’t wrongly named raisins , they are a separate variety.
Yes, but of pumpkin-like proportions.
Can I tell my marrow joke? You know the one , about the man who spent all night in his vegetable garden to stop his prize exhibit (entered in a vegetable show ) from being sabotaged. He was found next morning frozen to the marrow. 
Was he holding his plums?
The mind…boggles.