Toppin' and Tailin' Time

It's toppin' and tailin' time! If you are a gooseberry jam aficionado as I am, you'd be willing to put in the effort to top-and-tail, i.e., cut off the stem and blossom ends of each individual berry, which is necessary before they can be turned into jam. I pick, top-and-tail, cut each berry in two, and then freeze them in jam-sized batches so I can do the cooking during cooler fall weather. It took me 45 minutes to top-and-tail the three cups of berries from this morning's harvest..first of the year, with lots more to come. My bushes are absolutely loaded this year! I let a few of these get a little too ripe so they were hard to cut in two without squishing, but another batch this size will be ready to pick either tomorrow or the next day. I love my gooseberry jam!

Gooseberry Season

Day 269: Cherries weren't the only thing on my picking agenda day before yesterday. The gooseberries are ripening! Now let me tell you: picking gooseberries is a dangerous endeavour. The bushes are very thorny, especially on the older canes. I'd pruned out a lot of the old canes last year which made it a little easier, but it also meant I'd probably only get enough gooseberries for one batch of jam. Indeed, that's what has occurred, but the trade-off for one year is worth it to save some of my skin. Gooseberries are also a bit of a pain to process for turning into jam. Each berry has to be topped (the stem end cut off) and tailed (the blossom end removed). I prefer to cut each one in half before putting them in a container to freeze. That way, they're ready to go when cooler weather arrives and I feel like making jam. Oh, I could make jelly from them as well,, thereby saving the work of topping and tailing, but I love having bits of gooseberry in my toast spread. Why go to all this work when I could make some other kind of jam? Because gooseberry jam is my absolute most favourite! A little tart, a little sweet...perfect on homemade sourdough bread.

Topped And Tailed

Day 274: As sick as I've been (still am, on some levels), the gooseberries very nearly got away from me this year. This morning, I forced myself out into the garden with a 4-cup Tupperware bowl which, by the time I was done picking, was brim-full. To put this into perspective, I would normally have picked four or five times, a cup at a time so that the topping-and-tailing part of the procedure only took fifteen minutes per collection. As it was, it took me over an hour to top-and-tail this batch, and there are at least that many more on the bushes to harvest over the next several days. Yes, topping-and-tailing (removing the stem and blossom ends) is a lot of work, and it's arguably one of the main reasons most people don't bother with growing gooseberries (vicious thorns being another), but for those of us who love gooseberry jam, it's worth both the effort and braving the hazards. These now go into the freezer where they'll stay until cooler weather for processing.

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!