Fools For A Gooseberry
Egton Bridge, about six miles or so south-west of Whitby, is home to the village’s Old Gooseberry Society, whose show in 2022 was a mix of the new and the familiar. Hosted for the first time in the grounds of Egton Manor, Graeme Watson won his eleventh Champion Grower title. In doing so, he scored his first ever perfect sixty, achieving top marks in each of the six categories, the heaviest berry in the four colours (red, yellow, green, and white), the heaviest twins (two berries on one stalk), and heaviest dozen.
The world of gooseberry growing can be fiercely competitive. In 2021 the reigning champion and President of the Goostrey Gooseberry Society, Terry Price, announced that he was unable to compete in the Cheshire village’s annual show after his prize bushes had died. Laboratory analysis revealed that they had been sprayed by a chemical not readily available over the counter, leading to allegations that it was foul play on the part of a rival.
Another challenge is the weather. For a fruit that thrives in moist, mild conditions this year’s long sustained period of dry weather and high temperatures has meant that even the most experienced growers have struggled to sustain the quality and size of their berries, with weights down from 2021.
A tad old-fashioned perhaps, the gooseberry is a wonderfully tasty and versatile fruit, with a thin, edible skin and a juicy interior packed with seeds that give that added crunch to the bite. Ready to pick from early summer onwards, the slightly hairy berries offer two flavour profiles. The early season ones are green and underripe, perfect for pies, crumbles, or jams, while those picked later are sweeter and juicy, ideal for eating fresh.
Appropriately, the Germans call gooseberries “Stachelbeeren”, thorn berries, as the bush, while a prolific producer of fruits, does not yield them easily, protecting them with fearsome thorns. In France gooseberries are “grosellies à maquereau”, mackerel currants, as they were served as an accompaniment to oily fish. Like grosellie, some suggest, the English word “gooseberry” shares a common root, the Frankish “krûsil” meaning crisp berry, which manifested as “groses” or “grosier” in Middle English.
There is a simpler explanation, according to the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary. “The grounds on which plants and fruits have received names associating them with animals”, they write, “are so commonly inexplicable that the want of appropriateness in the meaning affords no sufficient ground for assuming that the word is an etymological corruption”.
Gooseberry was one of the many names given to the devil, perhaps indicating why the unwanted third accompanying a romantic couple is said to be playing gooseberry, while a gooseberry bush was a euphemism for pubic hair. That is why so many babies were born under one, presumably. Regionally, gooseberries were known by a variety of names, including carberry, dewberry, fayberry, feaberry, honey-blob, wineberry and goosegog.
Until the 16th century gooseberries were small, sour, and unappetising, mostly found in the wild, but the introduction of a pale green variety by Henry VIII into his garden and the discovery by chefs that they were perfect accompaniments to fatty and oily foods saw them grow in popularity. By the 17th century gooseberries were widely cultivated, especially in the Midlands, northern England, and Scotland where the climate proved ideal for producing more flavoursome fruits. Growers began to experiment, producing sweeter, smoother, brighter, tastier fruits, which were more appealing to the British palate.
