all terms meaning a dried grape. Raisin can be used in a general sense, to apply to all such items, but is usually taken to mean a dried grape which is not a sultana or a currant. Sultana is sometimes a noun, sometimes a variety name (Sultana grapes), and sometimes an adjective (sultana raisins). Currant is a plain noun.
Raisins of most kinds originally came from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East (especially Turkey), and W. Asia (notably Afghanistan). They are still produced in these regions, but the leading producer is now California, where the main raisin varieties of grape are the following:
Other varieties are: Spanish Malagas (or Muscatels), large and delicious; Smyrna Sultana, seedless, pale yellow with a fine flavour; Corinthian raisins, a separate grade of sultanas, usually a little larger and darker than Smyrnas, but not to be confused with currants.
Sultanas are usually larger and paler than ordinary raisins.
Currants are tiny raisins made from drying a small, black variety of grape which was first grown at Corinth in Greece. Such currants have been used by cooks since classical times, sometimes in savoury dishes but most consistently in bakery goods and sweet foods. They often figure in English recipes of the 17th and 18th centuries as ‘currans’. They continue to be indispensable ingredients for such items as spotted dick, Eccles cakes, and Scottish black bun. Cultivation of grapes for currants has spread to Australia and the USA.
Zante is a small, black grape originally grown in the E. Mediterranean area for drying into currants.
The so-called raisin-tree, Hovenia dulcis, does not bear raisins. It is a deciduous shrub grown from the Himalayas to Japan (where the name is kenponashi), whose thickened fruit stalks, when dried, bear some resemblance to raisins and can be used in similar ways.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
