aileth wrote:DiGs wrote:Apparently there are a lot of different varieties of gooseberries.
I've only ever seen the green ones; in my mind, they are always associated with red and black currants, probably because ours are planted in the same spot, and ripen at approximately the same time.
Quite nice, if they're really, REALLY ripe, translucent and almost golden, otherwise they are mouth-puckeringly tart. And in a dessert with a bit of sugar and cream and custard--mmmm!
Maybe because I rarely, if ever, see them in the supermarkets or in the greengrocers. I did try those green ones in stargazer's pictures something like 55 years ago, but never tried them since. Kiwi fruit & Kiwi berries are far more popular here. (Now I wonder why that might be?) Stargazer, I did like the look of the gooseberry fool, though. More delicious clotted fresh cream than custard.
) When I was young what we now call Kiwi fruit was actually called Chinese gooseberries, & to boost sales from New Zealander suppliers, I think, they were rechristened Kiwi fruit. Kiwis of course are New Zealand's national birds, & we call New Zealanders as a whole the Kiwis, just as we are called the Aussies, & our football teams the Wallabies & the Kangaroos etc. We have just as much rivalry with NZ over pavlova, a delicious dessert with nice fluffy insides & crispy brown meringue -like outsides, often decorated with whipped or clotted cream, chocolate, berries, other fruits like peaches, apricots, passionfruit pulp, bananas & yes, kiwi fruit slices. 
