Two or three juicy red currants for me. A few for the bowl. Repeat.
Today, I harvested a good bowlful of sunripened red currants from my mom's garden here in Nebraska. I think these bushes are as old as me! I used to pick them the same way when I was a child.
For as long as I can remember, my mom has always had strawberries, apples, pears, ground cherries, gooseberries, tart cherries, concord grapes, and/or raspberries in her garden. My mom and grandma used to can jars and jars of fruit and store them in the basement to make it through the long, bitter cold winters here.
Over the years, several of the fruit trees have died, and the garden has shrunk in size. It's still bigger than mom can really handle now since dad needs full-time assistance. So I was happy to get my hands dirty and help out since I've been home.
I can't really take these currants back to Istanbul, though I think the Turks would love these sweet-n-tart berries. (Turks do eat a lot of tart fruit like the green erik and green raw almonds.) Guess I'll eat them by the handful while I can!