Dawn
Star Gooseberry (botanical name Phyllanthus acidus) is a tart, juicy fruit as the name suggests. The fruits are small, borne in clusters all along the branches. These fruits are extremely sour and juicy, that the very thought of it simulates the production of saliva in your mouth, like the Pavlovian dog. These light green fruits grow behind our home, but no one even bothers to collect them. They ripen and fall to the ground.
Star gooseberries are made into sweet and spicy pickles , vine, jams, squashes sometimes the ripe berries are eaten with a dusting of salt and chilly flakes. I have also been told that they make tasty sweet sauces. I collected a bag of these fruits last year and made some vine out of it. It tasted almost like the grape vine I make, but I liked the fresh flavor of the berries in the vine.
This year they are just falling to the ground and I hope someone will take them. Even the squirrels and birds seem to avoid these berries because of their sour taste. Each time I eat these berries I get a throat infection (I am very prone to throat infections). I can only drink the vine, but I don’t drink wine regularly, no one at home does either. If no one comes to pick them I might try making a squash out of it. It is too much work as I need to remove the pit for each of these tiny fruits.
-
Have you seen these fruits before?
-
1 Yes
-
2 No
-
It is nice to see the picture of these fruits.
I am glad you like it.
I remember these fruits, we don’t get them often in our part of the US.
Does it bring out a spurt of saliva in your mouth as you remember these fruits?
it does I had to go get breakfast!
LOL, the sourness gives me the shivers, but the vine tastes so fresh and has a grassy flavour to it. Hope you enjoyed your breakfast.
i did – i have not had gooseberry wine. I will have to look and see if i can get some!
I am not sure if anyone even makes such things other than me 😀
I didn’t know gooseberries grew on trees too. I had two gooseberry bushes in my garden in Latvia one was green and the other purple gooseberries.
The star gooseberry and the Indian gooseberry grow on trees. We don’t have bush gooseberries here.
That’s awesome, you are making wine and sangria during the quarantine. I love it.
I like homemade vines because they hardly contain any alcohol. They taste fresh, almost like the mild form of the berry itself.
What a lovely tree covered in fruit. Never seen one.
This is s tropical tree and it may not have found its way to the US because it doesn’t taste very good. LOL
I have never seen this kind of sour grapes. Interesting information.
It is a berry, it can get a bit sweet when ripe but it is still very tart.
Seems no one’s likes sour fruits. I have never seen them. If they tasted bitter, would they eat them?
I guess bitter fruits have takers, bitter melons here are consume in large quantities. But these don’t have takers.