Gooseberries

Category: Food

Type

Voluntary

Introduction and description

 My father grew gooseberries.  He must have had about 10 bushes.  The fruit, even when ripe, were green and made you suck your cheeks in and squint a bit.  Your eyes tended to water too, even when they had sugar added.  My mother loved them like that, but then my Mum was a bit special.  My father even tried to make some home made wine from them, but that really did make your eyes water, I'm not sure 'dry' describes it adequately.  It was an acquired taste.

So, I have to say I did not have a great desire to plant gooseberry bushes when my husband and I acquired a house with a big garden.  But I was wrong, because there are some lovely sweet pink varieties of dessert gooseberries that taste heavenly, and gooseberries are healthy, versatile and very easy to grow.  What changed my mind was my first attempt at gooseberry ice cream, of which more in a moment.

Ribes uva-crispa - L. is better known as the common or European gooseberry.  It belongs to the Grossulariaceae family.  The plant is a deciduous shrub growing to 1.2 m (4ft) by 1 m (3ft 3in) which has soft hairy leaves and fearsome prickles or 'spikes'.  It is extraordinarily hardy, surviving North of England winters buried completely in snow and being subjected to hard frosts.

The gooseberry is native to Europe, northwestern Africa, west, south and southeast Asia.  They grow gooseberries in Southern India in Kerala, which shows what a versatile plant it is.

The fruit of wild gooseberries is smaller than in the cultivated varieties, but tasty; the fruit is generally hairy, but there are some smooth varieties; the berries' colour is usually green, but there are red (to purple), yellow, and white variants. 

The European gooseberry is one of several similar species in the subgenus Grossularia; and in other related species, for example, the North American Gooseberry Ribes hirtellum, the fruit can be green or dark purple to black.  So in reality, there is nothing common about the common gooseberry.

 

Background

Overall the gooseberry is a tough little plant, but it does get attacked by mildew, if it is not looked after.  Fruit is produced on lateral spurs and on the previous year's shoots. It needs to be pruned.  The main aim is to let the light in and a subsidiary purpose is to allow picking without excessive scratching from the spines. "Heavy nitrogen composting must be avoided as too much nitrogen will produce extensive growth and weaken the bush. This will make the bush susceptible to mildew".

Gooseberry bushes are also vulnerable to magpie moth caterpillars,  the V-moth and the worst pest in our parts  - the Gooseberry sawfly (Nematus ribesii).  Nematus ribesii grubs bury themselves in the ground to pupate and on hatching into adult form, they lay their eggs, which soon hatch into larvae, on the underside of gooseberry leaves.   They can strip a plant of all its leaves, almost overnight.  Interestingly enough, the plants do survive, producing new leaves, but practically no fruit.

“Insecticides used in the 19th-century against these included tar water, weak solutions of carbolic acid, and powdered hellebore, which worked against magpie moths and V-moths as well as gooseberry sawflies. Foxglove and tobacco infusions were also sometimes used.”

In theory if you dig around the plant every so often it digs up the sawfly, but in practise, you always miss some.

Plants are self-fertile and the flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs), so in theory you only need one.  If they survive the sawfly you get a good crop from one plant, as long as you feed it well.  The flowers are pollinated by insects.  The soil needs to be well drained, but moist during berry setting, and they seem to do best on acid soils, although on the whole they seem to do OK on most soils.  It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade.

One of the strange things about the gooseberry is it appears to be underrated medicinally.  It is mentionned as a plant to help with constipation, but on the whole all its properties did not appear to be widely known, or maybe we just lost this knowledge.

The medicinal properties are described in the observations.

So now you know.

Chemical constituents

I have reproduced the table that occurs in Dr Duke's database in full, as there are indications that the leaves as well as the fruit may have interesting properties.

Essential fatty acids are marked in green.  Gooseberries contain both types needed

• ALA - α-Linolenic acid.
• LA - Linoleic acid.

Essential amino acids  are not present in gooseberries.  

Minerals - are marked in Blue.  Vanadium is not present nor Iodine, but all other needed minerals are.  The needed minerals present were

• Sulphur
• Arsenic
• Silicon
• Boron
• Potassium
• Cobalt  
• Chromium
• Sodium 
• Calcium 
• Phosphorus 
• Magnesium 
• Selenium 
• Iron 
• Copper 
• Manganese 
• Zinc
• Molybdenum

which makes goseberries a very useful food.  The only mineral needed but not present was: Chloride.

Vitamins - are shown in pink.  A gooseberry does not contain,  Vitamin B7 [also known as biotin],  Vitamin B12 [also known as cobalamin],  Vitamin D [also known as ergocalciferol], Vitamin B9 [also known as folic acid or folate or folacin] or  Vitamin K.  Vitamin C content is high.  It does contain

• Vitamin B1  -  also known as thiamin.
• Vitamin B2  -  also known as riboflavin. 
• Vitamin B3  -  also known as niacin. 
• Vitamin B5  -  also known as pantothenic acid.
• Vitamin C  -  also known as ascorbic acid.  
• Vitamin E  - also known as tocopherol.
• Vitamin B6  - also known as pyridoxine
• Vitamin A  - also known as Beta carotene

Heavy metals for which our bodies have no use are shown in the table below in Red. These must have been present in the soil in which this sample was grown, which means the plant takes up heavy metals.   Note that in time, it may be found that some of these metals do have a use, feeding our intestinal eco-sysytem, but for the time being they are regarded as not needed and in some cases not wanted.   If we look at this in a positive way, the gooseberry is a natural chelating agent.  If we can find an organically grown source of gooseberries, from an area free of toxins, we have a healing agent.

List of chemicals

Chemical	Part	Lo ppm	Hi ppm
(+)-CATECHIN	Fruit
(+)-GALLOCATECHIN	Plant
10,16-DIHYDROXY-HEXADECANOIC-ACID	Fruit
18-HYDROXY-OCTADECANOIC-ACID	Fruit
ACETIC-ACID	Fruit
ALPHA-LINOLENIC-ACID	Fruit	460	3792
ALUMINUM	Fruit	1	33
ARSENIC	Fruit
ASCORBIC-ACID	Fruit	263	2397
ASH	Fruit	4000	183000
BETA-CAROTENE	Fruit	0.6	14
BORON	Fruit	1	15
BROMINE	Fruit
CADMIUM	Fruit	0.001	0.04
CALCIUM	Fruit	185	4122
CARBOHYDRATES	Fruit	101800	839239
CHLORINE	Fruit	107	882
CHLOROGENIC-ACID	Fruit
CHROMIUM	Fruit	0.002	0.08
CITRIC-ACID	Fruit		8800
COBALT	Fruit
COPPER	Fruit	0.4	6
CYANIDIN-3-GLUCOSIDE	Fruit
CYANIDIN-3-RUTINOSIDE	Fruit
FAT	Fruit	5800	47815
FAT	Seed	183000	200000
FERULIC-ACID	Fruit
FIBER	Fruit	19000	156636
FLUORINE	Fruit	0.04	0.8
FORMIC-ACID	Fruit
FRUCTOSE	Fruit		41000
GAMMA-LINOLENIC-ACID	Seed
GLUCOSE	Fruit		44000
GLYOXYLIC-ACID	Fruit
INDOLE-ACETIC-ACID	Seed
IRON	Fruit	2.5	40
ISOCITRIC-ACID	Fruit
LEUCOANTHOCYANIN	Fruit
LINOLEIC-ACID	Fruit	2710	22341
LUTEIN	Fruit	1.7	9
MAGNESIUM	Fruit	86	938
MALIC-ACID	Fruit		7300
MANGANESE	Fruit	1	16
MERCURY	Fruit	0	0.017
MOLYBDENUM	Fruit
NEO-CHLOROGENIC-ACID	Fruit
NIACIN	Fruit	3	25
NICKEL	Fruit	0.004	0.4
NITROGEN	Fruit	1100	15000
OLEIC-ACID	Fruit	510	4204
OXALIC-ACID	Fruit
P-COUMARIC-ACID	Fruit
PALMITIC-ACID	Fruit	190	1566
PANTOTHENIC-ACID	Fruit	3	24
PECTIN	Fruit
PHOSPHORUS	Fruit	150	2665
POTASSIUM	Fruit	1150	20830
PROTEIN	Fruit	7300	84913
PROTOPECTIN	Fruit
QUINIC-ACID	Fruit
RIBOFLAVIN	Fruit	0	2
SACCHAROSE	Fruit		630
SELENIUM	Fruit
SHIKIMIC-ACID	Fruit
SILICON	Fruit	1	42
SODIUM	Fruit	10	82
STARCH	Fruit		15000
STEARIC-ACID	Fruit	130	1071
SUCROSE	Fruit		7100
SUGARS	Fruit	19800	102500
SULFUR	Fruit	96	1113
TANNIN	Fruit
TARTARIC-ACID	Fruit
THIAMIN	Fruit	0	3
TOCOPHEROL	Fruit	7	56
VIT-B-6	Fruit	1	7
WATER	Fruit	875000	882000
ZINC	Fruit	1	16

Method

You can make the standard gooseberry dishes such as gooseberry fool with a home made egg custard and gooseberry puree. 

Gooseberries can be made into a delicious chutney - both in the Keralan style and in the bog standard English style [gooseberries, cloves/allspice, sugar, malt vinegar]! 

Or there is the staple of the North of England  - smoked, filleted and deboned mackerel/herring with gooseberry sauce.

Or gooseberry salad - for the salad you must have pink dessert gooseberries as you eat them raw, to this you add rocket, new potatoes, and optionally beetroot or pecans. 

You can make gooseberry jam. 

And here are a few more unusual ideas on how to use gooseberries.  I have put more recipes in than normal to show you that it is a very versatile fruit and can be made into a host of interesting dishes.

The addition of coconut cream to this dish makes it into a lovely dish to have with rice and 'wetter' curries. 
Another curry recipe, very adaptable because you can add squashes, other sorts of vegetables, melons ,yams or more flavouring like shallots, garlic and ginger and as the Kerala lass who described this recipe says "make it even richer and yummier!".........

Now we move to dessert dishes and first of all the one that changed my mind over gooseberries.

another dessert recipe

Gooseberries go really well with elderflowers and are ripe round about the same time as elderflowers are out.  The alternative is to use organic good quality elderflower cordial.  This is more complicated, but very pretty

The following recipe is old and I was told it was the precursor in the UK for HP sauce or brown sauce to go with chips [fries] and egg and bacon.

 

Related observations

Healing observations

• Angelica - The Healing power of herbs – Ceres Esplan 019720
• Culpepper's Complete Herbal on Gooseberries 012368
• Dr Duke's list of antiparasitic plants 010310
• Dr Duke's list of Chemicals and their Biological Activities in: Ribes uva-crispa L. (Grossulariaceae) -- Gooseberry 019275
• Dr Duke's list of mercury chelating plants 017825
• Dr Duke's list of Plants containing LUTEIN 018922
• Dr Duke's list of Plants containing NICKEL 021500
• Dr Duke's list of Plants containing SELENIUM 020550
• Dr Duke's list of Plants containing SULFUR 021408
• Dr Duke's list of plants having chemicals with vasodilatory activity 017836
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antialcoholic Activity 018406
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antiatherogenic and Antiatheroscleroticactivity 018349
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antiatherosclerotic Activity 018414
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antidysmenorrheic Activity 018474
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antilupus activity 018440
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Antiosteoarthritic activity 018447
• Dr Duke's list of plants with hemopoietic effects - 1 High activity 012484
• Dr Duke's list of plants with hemopoietic effects - 2 All plants with activity 012485
• Dr Duke's list of Plants with Metal chelating ability from FERULIC ACID - PART 2 018254
• Gooseberries and anthocyanins 012366
• Gooseberries and blackcurrants as a source of GLA 012369
• Grozet Gooseberry Lager 016963
• Malic acid as a chelating agent 006176
• Mead - Melomel 020938
• Mrs Grieve on Gooseberries 012367
• Nicotine, coffee, cannabis and dopamine 005772
• USDA Nutrients - Fish, Mackerel 012472