SC - More Sourdough Woes

[THLRenata@aol.com]

English gooseberries have prickles (on the berries, they also have
prickles on the stalks but they are tougher), but they are like hairs,
won't damage you in handling and disappear in cooking - they don't need
removing.  They do have a stalk at one end and a hairy bit at the other
which need removing (unless you are going to sieve the cooked
gooseberries) - usually called 'top and tailing' in England.

Lovely fruit, one of my favourites.  Eaten green in June and July they
have a tart flavour which goes very well with elderflowers, makes a
wonderful fool, or tart or crumble.  Berries left on the bush to August
turn golden or red and become very sweet.

I've never been very fond of gooseberry jam, as too much sugar kills the
flavour (but then I tend to believe that of a lot of fruit), so that
might be why Bogdan's grandfather didn't like it!

Caroline
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	jeffrey stewart heilveil [SMTP:heilveil at students.uiuc.edu]
> Sent:	Monday, July 06, 1998 6:26 PM
> To:	sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG
> Subject:	Re: SC - Re: gooseberries + jelly
> 
> > 
> > Jeff says that European gooseberries are prickly.  Do the prickles
> wash
> > off? Do they cook down to be non-prickly? Our landlord grew them,
> but I
> > never handled them.  Would the prickles make them more or less
> likely to
> > appear in sauces, jellies, etc.?
> > 
> 
> Ah, confronted with my own words.  The prickles would be as much a
> part of
> the fruit as the skin, infact, they were most likely modified hairs on
> the
> fruit.  My grandfather was the only one I knew who had played with
> them,
> and he is no longer around to ask.  I do know that he talked about
> gooseberry jam for a long time, so my parents tried to make it for
> him.
> They got a lot of gooseberries (the spineless American variety), and
> made
> the jam.  It must have been a perfect rendition, since he said.  Oh
> yeah,
> I always hated the stuff, just that mom used to make it...
> 
> Sorry that I don't know how to remove them.
> 
> Bogdan
> 
> 
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