Wandering through the farmer’s market at Waitangi park this past Sunday I discovered these!!
Gooseberries. Your grandmother’s favourite fruit.
We had a vine in the yard when I was a wee tacker, and they’re blimmin great. The man was selling these for $10 a kilo, which sounds astronomical, but is in fact not too bad. This whole bunch cost about $2.50.
So what to do with them?
Simple.
In other news, I seem to be getting a double chin…
28 April, 2008 at 9:43 pm
One of my workmates brought in a huge bag full of those suckers and I was shocked (SHOCKED) to find out that most people had not only never tried them, but never even seen them!
29 April, 2008 at 1:21 am
Hey townboys that aint no gooseberry. That’s physalis. Totally different fruit. This is what real gooseberries look like…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooseberry
29 April, 2008 at 6:53 am
Aren’t those Cape Gooseberries?
They’re quite different from the gooseberries we used to pick from the semi-wild bush up the river on the high-country station we used to live on. Most weren’t too good raw (some of the red ones were OK) but were superb in pies and on your weetbix in the morning…
29 April, 2008 at 7:20 am
I see Cape Gooseberries . I’d like to know where to get my hands on ‘ordinary’ gooseberries. My Granparents grew stacks of them when I was a kid and yes gooseberry pie is the best
29 April, 2008 at 8:06 am
they are cape gooseberries.
so mr dobbs is correct!
common name, “gooseberries”, science name, “physalis peruviana”
29 April, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Hey yeah – AFAIK the last [non-cape] gooseberries I saw was in my parent’s garden.
The cape-type are news to me – I may have seen some at moore wilson unless they were tomatilloes.
29 April, 2008 at 4:52 pm
At MW? They were tomatillos; they have them sometimes.
Cape gooseberries used to grow as weeds in our garden when I was a kid in Hamilton. Just the thing for free-range children.
They’re great in upside-down cake.
29 April, 2008 at 4:58 pm
i don’t think i can emphasise how great that market is. you can always find good produce, and if you can’t then what you want is probably out of season.
heaps of times i’ve found little seasonal things like these, and it brings this townie back to where our food comes from.
not from california, for starters…
30 April, 2008 at 12:00 am
watch out for the double chin…LOL
Gooseberries make good drinks (and cocktails)
30 April, 2008 at 6:19 am
They’re supposed to be horrible for the throat…
30 April, 2008 at 1:37 pm
That would be a Cape gooseberry. My granny had them in her garden. Sometimes, the fruit would perish, and the softer parts of the leaves, and we would find the most beautiful skeleton shells, all fine tracery of pod in a delicate bell.