Topping And Tailing

Day 287: We're going to take a left turn from botany today to explain the process of "topping and tailing," a task which will be familiar to anyone who has cultivated gooseberries for use in jam. Or perhaps we should back up even further to explain the gooseberry itself. I'm willing to bet that a sizeable portion of the younger generation would say, "Gooseberries? What are those?" Hardly anyone grows them these days because their thorny defense system makes them hard to pick, and the aforementioned "topping and tailing" is time-consuming and rather tedious when one has any quantity to process. An underripe gooseberry will pucker your mouth in a way lemons can only dream of achieving. A ripe gooseberry is still tart, but at the same time, it holds a certain sweetness which suggests the possibility of culinary use. Some varieties make green berries, others red or brown, but most cultivars produce a fruit from half an inch to an inch in diameter, and do so in abundance. Did I mention thorns? Even when those luscious berries are dangling in easy sight, the gooseberry bush doesn't want you removing them. The thorns are longer than the berries, and cover the older canes as thick as the proverbial hair on a dog. Puncture-proof elbow-length gloves are strongly advised for neophyte gooseberry pickers. Those of us who have grown up with gooseberries have sufficient experience with their collecting to know to move slowly and carefully, but are nevertheless resigned to getting spiked. Let's say you've survived the harvesting experience more or less intact. Now you need to process the fruit to turn into one of the most delicious jams I know. Each berry, however large or small, will require that the stem end (top) and blossom end (tail) will need removing. This is done with the sharpest knife in your kitchen because the skins resist cutting, although they'll soften when cooked. Once I've topped and tailed my harvest, I like to cut each berry in half before freezing. The fruit keeps well in the freezer without the addition of sugar, so you can accumulate gooseberries as they ripen and then make jam when cooler days arrive in late autumn. I may actually have enough this year to make two batches!