The best pudding in the world is Gooseberry Fool. Fact. Forget sinful chocolate mousses, boozy trifles and the like – you want the honeyed sweetness, the ‘slip down easily’ nature of a soft pudding. Turning a hard green hairy berry into bliss? That’s kitchen alchemy of the highest order.
To be honest, I thought that was the main purpose of gooseberries – to be turned into fool. And yes, you can make fools with other fruit (I tried rhubarb once), but gooseberry fool just seems to have the edge.
But a summer or so ago, we found ourselves at a pick your own with gooseberry bushes boasting giant sized berries, and I knew I had to pick a good haul.
Dan encouraged me to make gooseberry jam, as a different way of using them. I didn’t need too much encouraging, to be honest. Gooseberry jam is translucent, the little dark seeds suspended in the sugar and puree of fruit. Some jams deserve to be set, but gooseberry jam works very well as a sloppier jam.
I have rather special memories of gooseberry jam. A long time ago, at the end of my first stint in Poland, I took part in a summer camp, renovating a special school in Przemysl, right down in the south east tip of Poland. There was a lot of physical work, with painting, sanding, wire brushing and so on, and morning break was a point to look forward to.
Poland does well at a soft, less acidic version of cottage cheese (ser bialy, or white cheese). Mash it up with a bit of jam, maybe a little cream or ‘yoghurt-cream’, and you get a kind of spreadable yoghurt. It is tremendous with blackcurrant, but it was transcendent with gooseberry jam.
Add some good bread, and apply, frequently. Preferably while sitting half in and half out of a window, on the top floor of a boarding school block, with beautiful views.
Gooseberry, in Polish, is ‘agrest’, so gooseberry jam becomes ‘dzem agrestowy’ – aggressive jam, as I liked to think of it. But prickles on the bushes and hairs on the gooseberries are quite overcome when you persevere enough to make yourself some jam. And you don’t even have to go to Poland to appreciate it.
Gooseberries and fish is meant to be good – in the way that chefs can serve things like rhubarb with fish. The acidity cuts through the richness of the fish, provides some colour on the plate, and so on. I haven’t done this as yet – guarding the gooseberries too jealously, I suspect – but it sounds worthwhile.
Unlike some of my other ingredients, I’m not going to offer more variations. When you have a flavour this wonderful, and you know what you like, it’s best not to mess.