Svartvinbärssaft

the Swedish blackcurrant cordial of the winter larder: wild-gathered berries steamed or simmered for their juice, boiled with sugar, and bottled to be drunk cold in summer and hot in the dark of the year

Origin: Sweden

From the journey of Currant.

The blackcurrant is native across Fennoscandia and was gathered from the wild there long before anyone planted it. The Swedish name records an early use: vinbär, the wine berry, for the country wine once made from it, with svarta and röda distinguishing black from red. Under the allemansrätt, the ancient right of public access that permits anyone to walk on any land and to pick wild berries and mushrooms there, the late-summer bärplockning is a national habit rather than a rural one, and the blackcurrant is amongst its rewards. What Sweden makes of the fruit is not a pudding but a drink. Saft is a heavily sweetened fruit concentrate, boiled and bottled in the abundance of August and kept in the cellar or the cupboard through the winter, diluted five or six to one with cold water in summer and made up with boiling water in the dark of the year. It stands in the larder of essentially every Swedish household; it is what children are given, what is carried in the thermos on a winter walk, and what is poured over pancakes and porridge. Blackcurrant is the most robust of the saft flavours, deep, tannic, and unmistakably itself even at a dilution of six to one.

Ingredients

  • 2 kg blackcurrants, stripped from their strigs
  • 1 litre water
  • 700 g granulated sugar, approximately (use 700 g per litre of strained juice; see method)
  • 1 tsp citric acid

Method

  1. Strip the currants from their strigs, discarding leaves and long stalks, and rinse. Put them in a large pan with the water, bring slowly to a simmer, and cook for 20 minutes, crushing the fruit against the side of the pan, until every berry has burst.
  2. Scald a jelly bag or a double thickness of muslin in a sieve, suspend it over a large bowl, and pour in the pulp. Leave it to drip overnight, or for at least 8 hours.
  3. Measure the juice into a clean pan. For every litre of juice add 700 g of sugar and half a teaspoon of citric acid. Warm gently, stirring, until every grain of sugar has dissolved.
  4. Bring to the boil and let it boil steadily for 5 minutes, skimming any foam. Do not boil longer: the object is to sterilise and to dissolve, not to reduce.
  5. Pour the hot saft into warm, sterilised bottles, filling to the neck, and seal at once. Cool, label with the year, and store in a cool, dark place. Dilute one part saft to five or six parts water, cold or boiling.

Notes

The steam-juicer, the saftmaja, is the standard Swedish tool for this and gives a clearer juice with less work; if you have one, steam the fruit for 45 minutes and proceed from step 3. Expect roughly 1.3 to 1.5 litres of juice from 2 kg of fruit, and therefore about two litres of finished saft. The same method takes redcurrants, raspberries, elderberries, lingonberries, and rhubarb, and a mixture of blackcurrant with a quarter part raspberry is a favourite. Beyond the glass, saft is poured over pancakes, over risgrynsgröt and other porridges, and into the pan when braising game; a splash in a glass of sparkling wine makes a very good Nordic apéritif.

The Gastrographer

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