{"id":10164,"date":"2014-04-11T00:42:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T07:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10164"},"modified":"2015-07-18T00:38:41","modified_gmt":"2015-07-18T07:38:41","slug":"gooseberry-no-fooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/vegetables-herbs\/gooseberry-no-fooling\/","title":{"rendered":"Gooseberry History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Gooseberry by brianpettinger, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/4667200556\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4049\/4667200556_2fdd379e4c.jpg\" alt=\"Gooseberry\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the first fruits to be available for the kitchen and table each year, the gooseberry is an old stalwart. Rhubarb is earlier but is not a true fruit but a herb, still both are good in crumbles.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Gooseberries Since the Middle Ages <\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Great show varieties have names redolent of our military past such as Roaring Lion, Hero of the Nile, Wellingtons Glory or my favourite Hampson&#8217;s Tantararara. Far better than the soppy names used for plants in the 21st century.<\/li>\n<li>Gooseberry bushes can easily live for 30-50 years and are one of the reasons for their longlived popularity<\/li>\n<li>Edward I had gooseberry bushes planted at Tower Bridge in 1275<\/li>\n<li>The young leaves were eaten and used as a diuretic according to 16th century Herbals.<\/li>\n<li>Gooseberry clubs were popular in England from the 19th century<\/li>\n<li>Gooseberries make jam and are grown for pectin for other fruit jams.<\/li>\n<li>Gooseberries thrive in most parts of the British Isles.<\/li>\n<li>The world record berry weighs 2.19oz and is from the Woodpecker variety<\/li>\n<li>The phrase &#8220;to play gooseberry&#8221; comes from the days when the fruit was a euphemism for the devil.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Gooseberry Shows<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Competitive gooseberry shows were wide spread but growing for size rather than flavour has fallen out of favour. A handful of shows still survive.<\/li>\n<li>Egton Bridge, on the North York Moors National Park, is the setting for the oldest surviving gooseberry show in the country.<\/li>\n<li>The show is held in August each year as it has been since 1800. It is organised by the Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Society.<\/li>\n<li>Gooseberry shows were particularly popular over the North of England but have dwindled from about 170 to only 20.<\/li>\n<li>Show<a href=\"http:\/\/www.egtongooseberryshow.org.uk\/index_photo_gallery.htm\"> photos<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Links and Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/vegetables-herbs\/gooseberry-training-and-growing-tips\/\">Gooseberry Training and Growing Tips<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/gp\/search?ie=UTF8&amp;keywords=gardening&amp;tag=richardpettin-21&amp;index=blended&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=6738#\/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;field-keywords=forgotten+fruit&amp;rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aforgotten+fruit\">Forgotten Fruit<\/a> by Christopher Stocks<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\"Gooseberry by brianpettinger, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/4667195168\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1280\/4667195168_846b24cc3c.jpg\" alt=\"Gooseberry\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gooseberry shows and history have a fascination and attract chefts and gardeners alike&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vegetables-herbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}