What's in season: Currants from Orchard Hill Organics in Katonah

Below, black currants from Orchard Hill Organics in Katonah. Above, the farm's market manager, Jeff Rowe, helps a customer. (Amy Sowder Photos)

By AMY SOWDER

At first glance, these dark little orbs look like blueberries.

But they’re currants, and unlike blueberries, these round berries have quite the assertive, tarty attitude. And they arrive at the party dressed in black, red, white, and a hoity-toity variety called Pink Champagne.

“People of northern European origin seem to really like them,” said Jeff Rowe, markets manager for Orchard Hill Organics in Katonah. “They’re good in jams and jellies and in fruit salads with other sweeter fruits.”

Orchard Hill grows these varieties, selling half pints of the fruit as long as they’re available. You’ll find them at the John Jay Homestead Farmers Market, and also the Scarsdale Farmers Market, Chappaqua Farmers Market, private clients, and restaurants such as Bedford 234 restaurant in the heart of Bedford Village.

The John Jay Farmers Market may be displaced behind the Coldwell Banker in downtown Katonah this summer while the homestead undergoes restoration, but the local and regional fresh produce is right where it should be: on the table, and soon inside our bellies.

Next to the Orchard Hill tent at the Katonah market, Alex Kasman chimed in with ideas for current recipes. Kasman is head cake-maker working with his wife, Sofia Todisco, who founded the Flours Pasta & Bakeshop in Haverstraw.

“I personally think the black currants are great in a vanilla scone,” Kasman said. “They’re great in baked goods. Or, cook them down in red wine sauce for duck or pheasant. All the meat juices go into it — excellent.”

Currants need a lot of sugar, so they’re also good for juices.

These precious jewels don’t last long. They’ll store in the fridge for a few days, but like blackberries and raspberries, you have to use them up ASAP. 

A plus point? “They are a breeze to freeze,” according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. That makes currants great for smoothies and fruit crumbles.

Kasman also likes to douse currants in honey before coating them in coconut or maple sugar. Then he bakes them at 100 to 120 degrees for a few hours, “until they’re cooked down to about half and all shriveled, and then I put them in granola.”

Currants are a great source of vitamin C and fiber, with a good amount of iron and calcium.

European gardeners and cooks are more familiar with black currants than those of us in the U.S., because these berries were banned from being grown or sold here for many years because of a disease called white pine blister rust. It threatened the forest industry. The ban was eventually lifted, and the berries are back.

Enter our local farms, Orchard Hill, a third-generation orchard and vegetable farm that began in 1994. It’s owned by Rowe’s brother, David Rowe, also a chiropractor. Their farm is not USDA-certified organic, but they follow the practices of the Northeast Organic Farming Association, Rowe said.

“Organic farming is so regional, and this organization is run by farmers themselves,” he said.

Orchard Hill has three main principles for its agricultural practices:

— Sustainable, ecological soil building: Focusing on high nutritional content, carbon sink, more water retention and filtration, and biodiversity.

— Minimizing its ecological and carbon footprint: Selling locally and directly from the farm, collecting yard waste from local landscapers and composting, sequestering carbon and keeping nutrients local, and diverting its waste stream from landfills.

— Managing pests with cultural controls: Planting smart rotations to deter pests and increase beneficial and predatory insects; minimal spraying and only OMRI (formulated for organic use) sprays as a last resort; and never using herbicides.

Orchard Hill Organics is located at 9 Orchard Hill, Katonah.