With a taste that can be as sharp as their thorns gooseberries are not to everyone’s liking. I love the  crisp bite and piquant flavour that livens the palette whether you eat them straight from the bush or wrap them in a luxurious blanket of cream and sugar. Last year the birds raided our pickings before our new fruit cage has kept the pests at bay giving us several kilos of fruit and each berry has been given special culinary treatment their deserve in their first outing in our backyard pantry.
A deliciously light but definitely show off gooseberry fool was pride of place as our Christmas Day dessert. Â It was also the fruit I used to christen my new ice-cream maker creating a frozen yoghurt that was most definitely the fanfare of gooseberry taste experiences so far. Â Turning some into jam will I hope bring back the bitter sweet taste long after summer has gone.
There are plenty more berry adventures to come this year with raspberries, blueberries, worcesterberries (that are apparently taste like a cross between a gooseberry and blackberry), tayberries (cross between blackberry and raspberry) and blackberries all starting to show their colours alongside the red and blackcurrants. Â There is nothing more comforting to be reaping the rewards of your own growing efforts.
I spied a punnet of gooseberries tucked away on the top shelf in the supermarket and gasped at the price.  A small punnet was almost $6 dollars making me realise once again of the long term benefits of growing your own berries. We’ve recouped our initial investment in the plant already and I suspect treated our berries with more reverence than I ever would have with something I’d bought from the shop. That said it dawned on me that I might need to buy some strawberries to buy for this year’s jam supply after the recent rains have ruined the possibilities for a continued home harvest.
It’s was the strangest feeling recognising that I felt a disappointment to not be self sufficient in strawberries for jam. If I were a a person truly committed to self sufficiency I’d be doing without strawberry jam this year but instead I’m wrestling with levels of self indulgence I’ve not recognised in myself before. As a next best thing to growing my own strawberries I could buy locally sourced fruit or perhaps I should buy locally made jam.
If you were me what would you do?
A: do without home made strawberry jam this year
B: buy local strawberries and make my own jam
C: buy locally produced jam?
Buy the strawberries and make the jam 🙂 If you didnt really love the baking and making side – I would go just buying the jam and have done with it – but you know you will really love the making bit 🙂
BTW – one of the best things I ever tasted with Gooseberries was from Moniack Winery – they made a stunning Gooseberry and Mint Jelly. If sugar wasnt an issue – I wouldnt have anything else on my roast lamb – its devine.
That’s so funny Helen, I just read yesterday about Gooseberry and Mint Jelly and thought I’d try making some of that. Need to work out proportions as I only have a few berries left. Thanks for the suggestion.
Im so jealous of your gooseberries, you don’t see them much and then as you you said very expensive if you do. i would buy local strawberries and make your own jam, With all this rain you are likely to pick them up cheap as they won’t hold long for retail and it supports the local growers.
I’m following the food chain of if can’t grow your own buy local! Jam making weekend ahead.
Wow, my Nana would so love to live near you! I had never even seen gooseberries like this until she told me about them and how much she loved them as a child. I then bought a small (expensive) container of them for her, just so she could re-live her childhood fantasy. To actually grow them would be amazing. I grew up eating cape gooseberries (which I adore and also used to make jam out of, your’s looks wonderful!) and didn’t know they were even different to the ones you grow.
I’d buy some local strawberries and make your jam, you’ll be thankful in the middle of bleak NZ winter that you did 🙂
I’d find room for gooseberries in any garden having grown my own for the first time. Your Nana is right – aren’t they always!
Wow, you’re so lucky to have so many berries, even if you don’t have enough strawberries this year for jam! Love the colour of that gooseberry jam.
I’d pick B – buy some local strawberries and make the jam – because homemade is best! (er, most of the time.) But if you get sick of jam-making buying some locally wouldn’t be a bad idea either 🙂
Been on a buying frenzy and jam making is high on the agenda for the weekend!
Yes you must make the jam 🙂 That gooseberry jam looks absolutely gorgeous 🙂