Whitecurrant

Ribes racemosa, Fructu albo - White Currant Bush

"I beg the benevolent reader not to dispute tastes and colors," Poiteau wrote in 1846 about this white currant.

An invitation to gustatory tolerance that hides a real horticultural debate: in Paris, the acidity of red currants is mellowed with white ones; in Normandy, the latter are considered too acidic.

This regional paradox testifies to the diversity of terroirs and palates, which even the great Linnaeus could not resolve with his formula on the colors and flavors of fruits.

The white-fruited currant bush is recognizable at first glance by a certain paleness that spreads across all its parts. Its epidermis is lighter than that of its red counterpart, its flowers a dirty white, devoid of the characteristic red of the colored variety.

This particularity is also found in strawberry, raspberry, and cherry trees: the trained eye of the gardener can predict the color of the coming fruit. Less cultivated than the red currant bush in Paris, the white one suffers from a double commercial constraint: its bunches are less generously loaded, and its fruits keep less long on the vine, their skin turning brown over the days.

Yet, their gustatory quality remains comparable, even superior according to Parisian palates who use them to temper the acidity of their scarlet cousins.

This plate is taken from Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers, a botanical encyclopedia published between 1807 and 1835, a major reference in 19th-century naturalistic illustration.

It combines the rigor of scientific drawing with a rare artistic sensibility, characteristic of the great plates from the golden age of illustrated botany.