OT Gooseberries

was at the supermarket today and saw them they looked like maybe they are pickled? never had them can anybody tell me what they are? al

Used to have them when I was a youngster at home. Kinda sour when still green but after they turn kinda red they're pretty darned good right off the plant by the handfull. Can't say I've ever heard of pickeled ones tho. Keith

keith when i first saw them they looked like miniature green pickled tomatoes that was first thought that came to mind [g] i like to try new foods, never had them al

Gooseberry pie is a real delicacy. My mother make them in season, Been years dinc i have had one.
gitrib

My wife just fixed one and I just finished eating a good piece of that ole gooseberry pie. There are lots of wild bushes here in southwest mo and they are ready to pick now.

My family grows many, many gooseberries. The white ones do look like little green tomatoes. The shell is hard and tart and the inside is soft and sweet. The combined taste is unique. They were banned for many years in the US because the plants can host a disease that was thought to be a major threat to the forestry industry. If you get the chance, try one!

Being we have several gooseberry bushes at the house, my wife makes gooseberry custard pie all the time

They make pretty good wine, believe it or not.

We had two bushes, and they always produced enough for around seven gallons of wine.

It was so clear, you could read a newspaper through an eight gallon carboy.

Paul

Had a few bushes on the farm where I grew up. Have a couple of bushes where I live now. Still dont eat them lol. Nobody in the family cared for them. Mother would do perserves of about everything and make crab apple jelly but not the gooseberries. Gets me thinking that crab apple jelly sure was good. Need to plant me a crab apple tree.

i have about 5 gooseberry bushes along the creek, they make great pie, mother in law makes a jam out of em too. a little on the tart side if you eat em right off the bush.

Like RockRon says, they were thought to carry a blight that effected pines and other evergreens.
The WPA and the CCC boys attempted to eradicate both gooseberries and currants back in the 30's and 40's.
We had a currant bush back on the farm when I was a kid and my mom made currant jelly every year. There were a few gooseberry bushes down the "lane" where we used to bring the cows in from pasture and my brother and I really enjoyed the few we got. I discovered a very small gooseberry bush next to the stonewall by my new house and I have gotten a few berries off it. I thought it had "bit the dust" last year but I see it looks pretty healthy again this year.
Try them, you'll like them.

Sprayed hill pasture for gooseberry bushes and Canadian thistles year after year with no real good effect. Lowered rear tool bar on the '40 SC Case, lashed on a 55gal drum of 24D mix, slipped on the pto pump and front boom. Often stopped to give an extra dose of spray to gooseberry bushes. Didn't dare drive right over them as each bush hid an old tree stump! Made the Canadian Thistles wilt and Bull Thistles droop but nothing ever disappeared.

Mother used to mix elderberries and apples for a great pie. Leo

My wife's uncle was an old Swede, his mother came over from the "old country". He always reminisced about her gooseberry pie.

We had a gooseberry bush on our place, and the family always got together on July 4th. She made a gooseberry pie, and gave him a piece of it without telling him what it was. He was in his 80's at the time- got all teary and said it was like he was back in his childhood, kept thanking her, etc. It was the most emotional I'd ever seen him.

Same type of thing happened with me and my grandmother when I was in high school. She grew up on a farm near Lebanon, MO- told about climbing up in the "simmon (persimmon) tree" and eating simmons until she was sick. I went to Kansas City for the National FFA convention in 1965, and went on to Lebanon and visited the family. They took me out to the old home place, and there was the very same persimmon tree, full of fruit. They helped me pick some that were green enough that they would just be ripe when I got back home.

Took them to grandma in the nursing home- I gave them to her, and she asked where I ever got persimmons around here (Washington state)? Told her that actually, they were from the very same tree she had always told us about. She just sat there and bawled, and ate persimmons.