Ground Cherries and Goldenberries

"We see that the vendors of this worthless thing are still at their old tricks, and with so much craftiness that they deceive the very elect. Our good friend of the Maine Farmer has listened to the humbug tale, and is so far deceived as to "recommend a general trial of it". Now, Doctor, we have had some experience with this plant - have destroyed thousands in a year as mere pests. Instead of the fruit being, as the pedler represented, "valuable for pies, puddings, and preserves, and making a good wine to boot," it is not fit to be used for any such purpose, and is not, where even the most ordinary fruits or berries can be had. The whole scheme of selling this "ground cherry" is a cheat."

                                                                  from the Boston Cultivator
                                                                  via William Woys Weaver,
                                                                  date not given


Groundcherries have been grown in Ontario for a long time; perhaps as long as 200 years. I expect they would have been brought up from the United States by Mennonite farmers. According to Mother Earth News, they were first recorded in Pennsylvania in 1837. Somehow, they have never spread too far beyond their original Mennonite and Amish roots, although there are little spurts of interest in them every few decades. That is because reviews of them are very... mixed.

Some people love them, and some people hate them. There doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground, although I do inhabit what little there is. I confess I would have cheerfully counted myself a hater, until about 5 years ago when we purchased some dried Golden Berries from Ten Thousand Villages. Wow, tasty! I'll get back to these in a minute.

The historically grown-in-Ontario groundcherries - a term that gets applied to a number of physalis species - would be physalis pruinosa, sometimes known as physalis pubescens. Physalis longifolia and physalis heterophylla are weedy species in Ontario. Physalis heterophylla (clammy groundcherry) is edible, but I believe the fruits are fairly small and the plant is an invasive perennial. Chinese Lanterns (physalis alkekengi var. franchetii) and tomatillos (physalis ixocarpa) are relatives; both edible. Only the berries of any of these plants are edible, and only when completely ripe, a situation not uncommon in members of the solanacea family. They are not ripe until the husks turn yellow to brown and the fruits fall from the plant. They must be gathered quickly though, or rodents are likely to find them. Although they can be eaten raw when dead ripe, most people suggest that if they are to be eaten in any quantity they should be cooked.

The two best known varieties of groundcherry are Aunt Molly's and Cossack Pineapple, but there are certainly others. These are the groundcherries that would leave me in the "hate 'em" camp.  

The Golden Berries I have been growing are physalis peruviana, a tropical species not well adapted to growing in Ontario. This particular species is also known as the Cape Gooseberry or Poha, as well as Golden Berries which seems to be the marketers term du jour.

We planted a few seeds from those original dried Golden Berries, but only a couple - and I do mean 2 - of the resulting fruits ripened before frost, coming from I believe 4 plants total. We have planted them off and on since then, but have grown them most years regardless of whether we have planted them or not. Just about the time we decided to give up on them they started to volunteer.

We are definitely seeing a difference in their ability to ripen before frost. This year, in spite of a very poor growing year for anything of a tropical inclination, we expect to harvest dozens of fruits (in total from 4 or 5 plants, to be sure). On the other hand, many of them seem to be going bad, and I suspect this is because they have suffered chill damage.

These Golden Berries are a bit larger than the more traditionally grown pruinosa varieties, and dried at least I found them not to have the slightly musky aftertaste that I suspect puts many people off of them. No one ever seems to mention it; they are described as tasting of such disparate things as pineapple, citrus, mango, custard, tomato, tangerines, and strawberries. But as far as I am concerned it is definitely there, and does not appeal to me. As noted, it seemed to disappear from the dried berries. I recently found some fresh Golden Berries imported from Columbia which I bought and made into jam. The flavour improved with cooking, I thought, but it also made it apparent how very, very full of tiny hard seeds they are.They get touted as a highish protein fruit because of these seeds, but I am willing to bet that the vast majority of them pass through the digestive system fairly unchanged.

Groundcherries or Golden Berries are grown in the same way as tomatoes, peppers, or tomatillos. They can be hard to start indoors in spite of their tendency to volunteer by the score. It may be that fluctuating temperatures trigger them to sprout. Otherwise they are easy, tolerant plants to grow, if large and sprawling. They will continue to produce later than tomatoes, but frost will do them in. Apparently a lot of growers pull up the plants and store them indoors, hanging upside down, and pull off the ripe fruits into the early winter. I may try that with one this fall.

William Woys Weaver notes that there are a lot of species of physalis, and their nomenclature is a mess. Everything I have read about physalis tends to reinforce this view. According to him, some of them will cross, and some of them won't. Groundcherries and tomatillos won't cross, but there is a lack of information about other species. My impression from people who are trying is that it isn't very easy. The only other groundcherry I have grown, besides the Golden Berry, is Little Lanterns which I got from William Dam. At the time I bought seed it was given a species name which was a synonym for peruviana, but they no longer give any species name and I can't find it now. I suspect in fact they are not the same thing, which is why they have removed the species name. Certainly it has shown no signs of crossing with our Golden Berries. I have a few plants in the garden from volunteers, but they are much smaller plant with a much smaller fruit than the Golden Berries.

I'm going to persevere with the Golden Berries. A number of people have said that they are too tropical to be adapted to northern growing, but so far I am actually having pretty quick results in getting them acclimatized.

Posted in: Ontario Food