My mom is half Greek. I’m pretty sure if she merely thought hard enough about the sun, you could actually watch her get tan.
My mom has told me that when she was a kid, her (non-Greek) grandmother would remark she was as brown as a berry from the summer sun, although she never knew quite what berry she meant.
“Maybe gooseberries?” my mom would offer.
Huh. Yeah, I guess I’d call that brown. Brown-ish, anyway.
These gooseberries are really something else. Much like a blueberry, they start out sweet, with crunchy little seeds, not too juicy. All seems well, you swallow and then — yow! — this sour shock comes out of nowhere. It’s so surprising and so intense, I think I actually flinched when I ate one.
Next on my Oddities of the Greenmarket series: whitecurrants. I’m still kicking myself for not snapping them up when I saw them Saturday — they looked like the ghosts of regular currants.
Gooseberry pie is, in fact, one of my favorite pies in existence. It is trumped ever so slightly by raisin cream.
Also, check out some naughty Chaucer: (courtesy of WikiAnswers)
From Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, (the Monk’s Tale), 1386-1400:
the monk’s taleHe was a lord full fat and in good point;
His eyen stepe and rolling in his head
That stemed as a fornice of a led;
His botes souple, his hors in gret estat,
Now certainly he was a sayre prelat.
He was not pale as a forpined gost;
A fat swan loved he best of any rost;
His palfrey was as broune as is a bery.
white currants? we can’t even find the red! or black! And gooseberries…
I’ve never seen brown gooseberries before-pretty!
Dan: Raisin cream pie! That sounds awesome and gross at the same time. More towards the awesome side, though. I’m going to investigate the matter further. (Also, digging up the Chaucer quote = NICE.)
Rachel: Well, they’re all in season now — white, black, and red — if you’re looking to take a road trip.