The federal ban eventually went away, leaving just state bans in place, and it then fell on individual enterprising farmers to lobby their local governments to throw those bans away. "Blackcurrants will be HUGE if you just let me grow them!" they argue today. The fruits have more antioxidants than blueberries and more Vitamin C than oranges, several times over. Why has no TV celeb called them a superfood yet? Farmers in some states are now growing and selling them, but they're fighting on an uneven playing field against a bunch of competing fruits that weren't kept from American taste buds for a century.
If you want to try blackcurrants yourselves, you can probably find them at certain specialty stores like, uh, Walmart. Yeah, you can get anything at Walmart. Or you can enter a sufficiently well-provisioned bar, put on your fanciest voice, and order "something with a little creme de cassis, if you please." But when you do, keep in mind that ...