Gooseberry

Gooseberry (/ˈɡuːsbɛri/ or /ˈɡuːzbɛri/ (American and northern British) or /ˈɡʊzbəri/ (southern British))[1] is a
common name for many species of Ribes (which also includes currants), as well as a large number of plants of
similar appearance. The berries of those in the genus Ribes (sometimes placed in the genus Grossularia) are
edible and may be green, orange, red, purple, yellow, white, or black.[2][3]

Green gooseberries
Red berries of Ribes uva-crispa

Etymology

The goose in gooseberry has been mistakenly seen as a corruption of either the Dutch word kruisbes or the
allied German Krausbeere,[4] or of the earlier forms of the French groseille. Alternatively, the word has been
connected to the Middle High German krus ('curl, crisped'), in Latin as grossularia.[5]

Ribes uva-crispa in Thomé's Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz (1885). Note the distinctive curl of the flower
petals.[6]
However, the Oxford English Dictionary takes the more literal derivation from goose and berry as probable
because "the grounds on which plants and fruits have received names associating them with animals are so
often inexplicable that the inappropriateness in the meaning does not necessarily give good grounds for
believing that the word is an etymological corruption".[5] The French for gooseberry is groseille à maquereau,
translated as 'mackerel berries', due to their use in a sauce for mackerel in old French cuisine.[7] In Britain,
gooseberries may informally be called goosegogs.[8]

Gooseberry bush was 19th-century slang for pubic hair, and from this comes the saying that babies are "born
under a gooseberry bush".[7]

In history

Gooseberry growing was popular in 19th-century Britain. The 1879 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica
described gooseberries thus:[9]

Ribes uva-crispa, blossoming in Latvia

The gooseberry is indigenous to many parts of Europe and western Asia,

growing naturally in alpine thickets and rocky woods in the lower
country, from France eastward, well into the Himalayas and peninsular
India.

In Britain, it is often found in copses and hedgerows and about old ruins,
but the gooseberry has been cultivated for so long that it is difficult to
distinguish wild bushes from feral ones, or to determine where the
gooseberry fits into the native flora of the island. Common as it is now on
some of the lower slopes of the Alps of Piedmont and Savoy, it is uncertain
whether the Romans were acquainted with the gooseberry, though it may
possibly be alluded to in a vague passage of Pliny the Elder's Natural
History; the hot summers of Italy, in ancient times as at present, would be
unfavourable to its cultivation. Although gooseberries are now abundant
in Germany and France, it does not appear to have been much grown
there in the Middle Ages, though the wild fruit was held in some esteem
medicinally for the cooling properties of its acid juice in fevers; while the
old English name, Fea-berry, still surviving in some provincial dialects,
indicates that it was similarly valued in Britain, where it was planted in
gardens at a comparatively early period.

William Turner describes the gooseberry in his Herball, written about the
middle of the 16th century, and a few years later it is mentioned in one of
Thomas Tusser's quaint rhymes as an ordinary object of garden culture.
Improved varieties were probably first raised by the skilful gardeners of
Holland, whose name for the fruit, Kruisbezie, may have been corrupted
into the present English vernacular word. Towards the end of the 18th
century the gooseberry became a favourite object of cottage-horticulture,
especially in Lancashire, where the working cotton-spinners raised
numerous varieties from seed, their efforts having been chiefly directed to
increasing the size of the fruit.[9]

Of the many hundred sorts enumerated in recent horticultural works, few

perhaps equal in flavour some of the older denizens of the fruit-garden,
such as the Old Rough Red and Hairy Amber. The climate of the British
Isles seems peculiarly adapted to bring the gooseberry to perfection, and it
may be grown successfully even in the most northern parts of Scotland;
indeed, the flavour of the fruit is said to improve with increasing latitude.
In Norway even, the bush flourishes in gardens on the west coast nearly
up to the Arctic Circle, and it is found wild as far north as 63°. The dry
summers of the French and German plains are less suited to it, though it is
 grown in some hilly districts with tolerable success. The gooseberry in the
south of England will grow well in cool situations and may sometimes be
seen in gardens near London flourishing under the partial shade of apple
trees, but in the north it needs full exposure to the sun to bring the fruit to
perfection. It will succeed in almost any soil but prefers a rich loam or
black alluvium, and, though naturally a plant of rather dry places, will do
well in moist land, if drained.[9]

The gooseberry was more populous in North America before it was discovered that it carries blister rust,
deadly to certain pines, resulting in its removal from forest areas.[10]

Ecology

Black bears, various birds and small mammals eat the berries, while game animals, coyotes, foxes and raccoons
browse the foliage.[10]

Modern cultivation

Sectioned gooseberries showing seeds

 Gooseberry, raw

Ribes
spp.

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)

Energy 184 kJ (44 kcal)

Carbohydrates 10.18 g

Dietary fiber 4.3 g

Fat 0.58 g

Protein 0.88 g

Vitamins Quantity %DV†

Vitamin A equiv. 15 μg 2%

Thiamine (B1) 0.04 mg 3%

Riboflavin (B2) 0.03 mg 3%

Niacin (B3) 0.3 mg 2%

Pantothenic acid (B5) 0.286 mg 6%

Vitamin B6 0.08 mg 6%

Folate (B9) 6 μg 2%

Vitamin C 27.7 mg 33%

Vitamin E 0.37 mg 2%

Minerals Quantity %DV†

Calcium 25 mg 3%

Copper 0.07 mg 4%

Iron 0.31 mg 2%

Magnesium 10 mg 3%

Manganese 0.144 mg 7%

Phosphorus 27 mg 4%

Potassium 198 mg 4%

Sodium 1 mg 0%

Zinc 0.12 mg 1%
Other constituents Quantity

Water 87.87 g

Units
μg = micrograms • mg = milligrams
IU = International units

†Percentages are roughly approximated using US recommendations for adults.

Source: USDA FoodData Central (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/index.html)

Humans cultivate gooseberries as insect habitats or directly for the sweet fruits. Numerous cultivars have
been developed for both commercial and domestic use. Of especial note are Ribes 'Careless', 'Greenfinch',
'Invicta', 'Leveller', and 'Whinham's Industry', to which the Royal Horticultural Society has awarded Garden
Merit.[11]

Ribes gooseberries are commonly raised from cuttings rather than seed; cuttings planted in the autumn will
take root quickly and begin to bear fruit within a few years. Nevertheless, bushes planted from seed also
rapidly reach maturity, exhibit similar pest-tolerance, and yield heavily. Fruit is produced on lateral spurs
and the previous year's shoots.[9]

Gooseberries must be pruned to insolate the interior and make space for the next year's branches, as well as
reduce scratching from the spines when picking. Overladen branches can be (and often are) cut off complete
with berries without substantially harming the plant. Heavy nitrogen composting produces excessive growth,
weakening the bush to mildew.[9]

Fungal pests

Gooseberries, like other members of genus Ribes are banned or restricted in several states of the United
States of America because they are secondary (telial) hosts for white pine blister rust.[12]

Insect habitat

Gooseberry bushes (Ribes) are hosts to magpie moth (Abraxas grossulariata) caterpillars.[9] Gooseberry plants
are also a preferred host plant for comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album), whose larvae frequently feed upon
the plant during the development stage,[13] v-moth (Macaria wauaria), and gooseberry sawfly (Nematus
ribesii).[9] Nematus ribesii grubs will bury themselves in the ground to pupate; on hatching into adult form,
they lay their eggs, which hatch into larvae on the underside of gooseberry leaves.
Culinary uses

Gooseberries are edible and can be eaten raw, or cooked as an ingredient in desserts, such as pies,[10] fools
and crumbles. Early pickings are generally sour and more appropriate for culinary use. This includes most
supermarket gooseberries, which are often picked before fully ripe to increase shelf life.[9] Gooseberries are
also used to flavour beverages such as sodas, flavoured waters, or milk, and can be made into fruit wines and
teas. Gooseberries can be preserved in the form of jams, dried fruit, as the primary or a secondary ingredient
in pickling, or stored in sugar syrup.

Nutritionally, gooseberries are a rich source of vitamin C, with no other micronutrients in significant content
(see table).

See also

List of gooseberries

References

1. Oxford English Dictionary 2nd edition, 1989. Accessed online 22 April 2010. (Note however that the OED has
final /ɪ/, as this entry predates its acceptance of happy-tensing.)

2. Harry Baker (1999). Growing Fruit (https://books.google.com/books?id=9AO6JAAACAAJ) . Octopus Publishing Group.

p. 70. ISBN 9781840001532.

3. "Northern Ontario Plant Database" (http://www.northernontarioflora.ca/description.cfm?speciesid=1004265) .

Retrieved 26 July 2014.

4. Wedgwood, Hensleigh (1855). "On False Etymologies" (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3924121;view=1up;

seq=79) . Transactions of the Philological Society (6): 69.

5. "Gooseberry" (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=gooseberry) . Online Etymology Dictionary, Douglas Harper.

2018. Retrieved 21 May 2018.

6. Thomé, Otto Wilhelm (1885). Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz [Flora of German, Austria and
Switzerland] (in German).

7. Oldfield, Molly; Mitchinson, John (23 March 2009). "QI: Quite Interesting facts about costermongers" (https://web.ar
chive.org/web/20090227162435/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/qi/4736383/QI-Quite-Interesting-facts-about-coste
rmongers.html) . The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/qi/4736383/
QI-Quite-Interesting-facts-about-costermongers.html) on 27 February 2009.

8. "Goosegog" (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/goosegog) . Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press.

2018. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
 9. Baynes, T. S., ed. (1879). "Gooseberry" (https://books.google.com/books?id=3c87AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA779) . The
Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature. Vol. 10. C. Scribner's sons. p. 779.

10. Angier, Bradford (1974). Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants (https://archive.org/details/fieldguidetoedib00angi/pag
e/68/mode/2up) . Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books. p. 68. ISBN 0-8117-0616-8. OCLC 799792 (https://www.worldca
t.org/oclc/799792) .

11. "Results > Search for AGM plants / RHS Gardening" (http://apps.rhs.org.uk/agm/Award2.asp?User2=Fr&crit=ribes) .
rhs.org.uk.

12. "White pine blister rust" (https://extension.umn.edu/plant-diseases/white-pine-blister-rust) . University of Minnesota

Extension. Retrieved 3 August 2021.

13. Janz, Niklas; Nylin, Sören; Wedell, Nina (1994). "Host Plant Utilization in the Comma Butterfly: Sources of
Variation and Evolutionary Implications". Oecologia. 99 (1/2): 132–140. Bibcode:1994Oecol..99..132J (https://ui.adsabs.
harvard.edu/abs/1994Oecol..99..132J) . doi:10.1007/bf00317093 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fbf00317093) .
JSTOR 4220740 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4220740) . PMID 28313958 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/283
13958) . S2CID 25442043 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:25442043) .

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