Fruit of the Week - Gooseberry

Gooseberry

Gooseberry bushes produce an edible fruit and are grown on both a commercial and domestic basis. The gooseberry is a straggling bush growing to 3–10 feet tall, the branches being thickly set with sharp spines, standing out singly or in diverging tufts of two or three from the bases of the short spurs or lateral leaf shoots. The bell-shaped flowers are produced, singly or in pairs, from the groups of rounded, deeply-crenated 3 or 5 lobed leaves. The fruit of wild gooseberries is smaller than in the cultivated varieties, but is often of good flavor; it is generally hairy, but in one variety smooth. Color is usually green, but there are red variants and occasionally deep purple berries occur.

Red Gooseberry

The gooseberry is indigenous in Europe and western Asia, growing naturally in alpine thickets and rocky woods in the lower country, from France eastward, well into the Himalayas and peninsular India.

In Britain, gooseberry bushes are often found in copses and hedgerows and about old ruins, but the gooseberry has been cultivated for so long that it is difficult to distinguish wild bushes from feral ones, or where the gooseberry fits into the native flora of the island. Common as it is now on some of the lower slopes of the Alps of Piedmont and Savoy, it is uncertain whether the Romans were acquainted with the gooseberry, though it may possibly be alluded to in a vague passage of Pliny the Elder's Natural History; the hot summers of Italy, in ancient times as at present, would be unfavorable to its cultivation. Although gooseberries are now abundant in Germany and France, it does not appear to have been much grown there in the Middle Ages, though the wild fruit was held in some esteem medicinally for the cooling properties of its acid juice in fevers; while the old English name, Fea-berry, still surviving in some provincial dialects, indicates that it was similarly valued in Britain, where it was planted in gardens at a comparatively early period.

Gooseberries are best known for their use in desserts such as pies, fools and crumbles. Gooseberries are commonly preserved by drying, storing in sugar syrup, or as jam or pickle. Gooseberries are used to flavored drinks such as soda, water or even milk, and are used to make fruit wine. Montreal-based tea company, DavidsTea, even used them in their summer collection tea "Midsummer night's dream".

Gooseberry Jam

Ingredients:
2 quarts fresh gooseberries
6 cups white sugar
  
1/2 (6 fluid ounce) container liquid pectin

Directions:
1.     Remove blossom and stem ends from gooseberries. Force berries through food mill. Measure 4 cups of the berry mash into a large pot. Stir in the sugar. Bring to a full rolling boil over high heat, and boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, and stir in pectin at once. Skim off any foam with a large metal spoon.
2.     Sterilize jars and lids in boiling water for at least 10 minutes. Take turns with skimming foam, and stirring the berry mixture for 5 minutes to let it cool slightly. Ladle into hot sterile jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.
3.     Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Servings Per Recipe: 80
  
Amount Per Serving
      * Calories: 65
    * Total Fat: 0.1g
    * Cholesterol: 0mg
    * Sodium: < 1mg
    * Total Carbs: 16.6g
    *     Dietary Fiber: 0.7g
    * Protein: 0.1g