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IN JUNE 1894, Harper鈥檚 Bazaar ran a page of recipes featuring currants and gooseberries. It proudly noted that 鈥渕ore than forty of the sixty known varieties of the currant are of American origin鈥� including the blackcurrant, 鈥渨ith its medicated taste鈥�, the white, 鈥渓ess acid than its ruby sister鈥� and the red, 鈥渨hose decided flavour renders it pre-eminently valuable as a sauce for meats and game鈥�.

Back in the 19th-century, US newspapers and magazines often carried recipes that made use of currants, yet now they have all but disappeared. Meanwhile these delicate fruits remain current in other parts of the world, not least in the UK, where they find use in jams, cordials and various sweet treats such as berry-laden summer puddings and gooseberry fools. And not just that. Even with confectionery brands such as Skittles and Starburst, the purple ones are different flavours on either side of the pond, blackcurrant in the UK and grape in the US. Why?

The answers lie in a ruthless and now largely forgotten war launched by the US government on the currant. While a ceasefire has long since been declared, these unfortunate berries never fully recovered 鈥� and so it is likely that the majority of people in the US today have never tasted one.

True currants, in case you are wondering, aren鈥檛 the same as raisins and sultanas. The popular Zante currants, or raisin currants, that originated in Greece鈥檚 Ionian islands are actually dried grapes, as are raisins and sultanas. True currants are a berry borne by bushes belonging to the Ribes genus, which contains more than 150 species and includes gooseberries. The dainty fruits come in various colours 鈥� typically black, red or white 鈥� and tend to be tart, with whispers of sweetness.

Currants have grown wild in North America for centuries. Many Indigenous communities used native species for culinary and medicinal purposes, and early colonists introduced more variety. As early as 1629, for example, the Massachusetts Bay colony imported European varieties of blackcurrants and redcurrants for cultivation.

Through the 1800s, these were often used to make jams, jellies, cordials, wine and sweet items like tarts, pies and spiced currants and even festive cocktails (see 鈥淐urrants past鈥�). Blackcurrants were used in home remedies. By the turn of the 20th century, of land, much of it concentrated in the state of New York.

But New York also happened to be home to the eastern white pine (Pinus strobus), then the US鈥檚 primary source of timber. The relatively soft wood of the pine was , used to make everything from matches to furniture, as well as exterior cladding and interior panelling for homes. Demand was high 鈥� so high that, by 1900, eastern white pine stocks were severely depleted. It wasn鈥檛 long before nurseries had to import seedlings from Europe.

Unfortunately, they received a stowaway too, a parasitic fungus named Cronartium ribicola that causes a devastating disease known as white pine blister rust.

The spores of this fungus enter through pine needles and spread steadily to the branches and trunk, infecting tissues and creating bulging, spore-filled cankers. Infected branches can be pruned to save a tree, says , a plant pathologist at Oregon State University. But once the spores reach the main trunk, the whole tree can be lost. If there is a wound on the tree in which spores can land, 鈥渋t鈥檚 like a free lunch鈥�, she says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 already an opening there for them to cause an infection.鈥�

The first credible report of the disease鈥檚 presence in the US came from New York state in 1909, by which point millions of eastern white pine seedlings had already been imported. At first, officials from the US Department of Agriculture tried to destroy all the diseased planting stock. Then, in 1912, they banned the import of white pines from Europe and Russia. Neither did the job. In just a few years, white pine blister rust had spread across the north-east. By 1921, the disease had overcome the white pine species of the western US. The country was facing an epidemic that threatened to destroy one of its most important industries.

What does any of this have to do with currants, you might ask. Well, it comes down to the fungus鈥檚 double life.

鈥淭he US launched a ruthless and now largely forgotten war on currants鈥�

Cronartium ribicola needs two alternating hosts to complete its life cycle. Its primary host is one of several species of five-needle pine trees. But the fungal spores that burst out of the cankers on white pines can鈥檛 directly infect other pines. They must first be carried, sometimes thousands of kilometres, on strong winds to seek out their secondary host: any susceptible species of Ribes. More specifically, they target the leaves of the plants. Currant plants act 鈥渓ike a spore-making machine鈥�, says Isabel Munck, a plant pathologist with the US Forest Service. 鈥淪pores that are made on the Ribes are the only ones that can affect white pines.鈥�

It follows that if you can get rid of the currant plants, which host Cronartium ribicola鈥榮 spores, the fungus effectively becomes powerless. And so it was decreed by the US government, with a federal Ribes eradication programme that began in earnest in 1916.

The authorities wanted to be swift and aggressive, having been stung by a previous catastrophe. At the end of the 19th century, in a space of just a few decades, the US lost almost all of its population of mature American chestnut trees to another fungal disease, chestnut blight. The country couldn鈥檛 afford to lose white pines too.

What followed was carnage. Vast swathes of currant shrubs were destroyed in forests, nurseries and home gardens. In 1919 alone, more than 100,000 hectares of currants were cleared in the north-east. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps employed thousands of people to pull up any wild or cultivated currant bushes in the vicinity of white pines, primarily by hand. Eradication efforts ultimately encompassed both east and west coasts as well as the Great Lakes and Rocky mountain regions, and ran through both world wars.

The campaign was indiscriminate. Not all Ribes species are equally susceptible to the fungus. The European currants, particularly the blackcurrant, were most vulnerable to blister rust and therefore most dangerous to pines. Yet the eradication programme spared nothing, neither native nor cultivated.

In Wisconsin, to take one example, the heavy-handed federal approach on the lands of the Menominee Tribe was initially met with some resistance 鈥渂ecause those [native] plant species are medicinally a part of our culture鈥�, says Jeff Grignon, a former forester for the Menominee Reservation. 鈥淭hey were opposed to removal of those species en masse.鈥� But , more than 12 million Ribes plants were destroyed between 1921 and 1950, often by scouring the same plots of land three times over.

In the long run, the arduous eradication programme, which sometimes took place on difficult terrain, proved to be unsustainable. The federal programme was dismantled by the late 1960s, but white pine blister rust was never fully stamped out. It is still prevalent in the eastern US, according to Munck, and its range is expanding to new areas in the west of the country. Even while implementing alternative approaches, such as selectively breeding disease-resistant pines, several states retained strict restrictions on currant cultivation, if not barring it entirely.

鈥淏y the mid-20th century, you see virtually no recipes with currants鈥�

But the campaign to eradicate currants had a distinct impact on the country鈥檚 culinary preferences. 鈥淐urrants went from something that was generally familiar to Americans to something unfamiliar,鈥� says food historian Stephen Schmidt. By the mid-20th century, he says, 鈥測ou certainly see a lot fewer recipes for them. In fact, you see virtually none.鈥�

So there you have it. The curious absence of these delicate fruits from the US culinary landscape, and the reason purple Skittles taste different on either side of the pond, can be traced back to the federal government鈥檚 decades-long campaign to squash the currant.