Physalis spp.
Solanaceae family
Throughout the US; eastern and central Canada
FOR YEARS I SCANNED THE “COOK’S CORNER” recipe exchange column in the Wednesday Columbus Dispatch food section. I was a kid, suspicious of all unusual foods, and I enjoyed the kooky quaintness of the older readers’ requests. One summer a reader wrote in seeking recipes for ground cherry pie, as well as places to buy ground cherries. “Ground cherries!” I thought, fascinated. I imagined bizarre cherries that grew like fruity radishes in the ground.
Alas, ground cherries are not a succulently sweet root vegetable, but they are a wonderfully old-fashioned plant that was, and is, beloved for pie by a certain generation. Ground cherries also have nothing to do with actual cherries: They do not grow on trees, they don’t look like cherries, they don’t taste like cherries, and they are usually smaller than cherries. The fruit is delicious in its own right. The best ground cherries have a pineapple-strawberry thing going on, and when you bite into them their taut skin cracks open and their juicy flesh bursts forth—a true summer treat.
Ground cherries belong to the nightshade family (a quick peek at their eggplantlike leaves is a dead giveaway), with close relatives including tomatillos (P. philadelphica) and Chinese lantern (P. alkekengi). Like its cousins, the ground cherry produces fruit encased in a papery husk, but the husks aren’t as fiercely sticky as a tomatillo’s, or as showy as Chinese lanterns. In fact, you have to peer under the plant’s foliage to see the fruits, which are shy little things. They knock tomatillos out of the ballpark, in my opinion, and they easily best Chinese lanterns, which are toxic.
Worldwide, the Physalis fan can find over seventy varieties, and plenty of them are ground cherries native to North America: the clammy ground cherry, the smooth ground cherry, the long-leaved ground cherry. Wild ground cherries tend to grow in well-drained areas, are apt to appear in fields tilled for agriculture, and are capable of wreaking a little havoc by hosting diseases and viruses of commercial crops. A number of states classify them as weeds—lucky you! But some types of ground cherries are more palatable than others, so don’t get excited yet. Also, if you spy ground cherries near a tilled field, consider if there may be agricultural runoff before you sample any.
The marvel of ground cherries is their appearance in meadows and fields, spots where trees bearing familiar fruits like apples and pears were not conveniently already growing for homesteaders of the Westward Expansion. But those homesteaders could grow or forage for ground cherries: Harvesting and preserving the fruit is mentioned in Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, as well as memoirs about homesteading in Oregon by Fannie Adams Copper and letters by Minnesota homesteader Mary E. Carpenter.
Cultivating ground cherries is another thing. Their seeds (which a mature plant produces in abundance, up to thirty thousand!) can be fussy to germinate. It’s a smart idea to start them indoors at the same time you’d start tomato seeds. I grow mine in containers—it’s one of the few fruits my teeny backyard will accommodate—and in a single season, the thing goes from a teeny seed to a sprawling plant that produces handfuls of adorable fruits in easily manageable waves. I delight in their lacy little hulls, the berries like golden pearls in a filigree setting.
One of the most delicious varieties, P. peruviana, hails from South America and is also called Cape gooseberry (though ground cherries are not gooseberries at all). In recent years the ground cherry has been grown on a larger commercial scale (well, large compared with next to nothing) and marketed as “goldenberries,” a superfood. You may see them in fancier food markets, sold in plastic clamshells.
Ground cherries enjoy a bevy of folksy nicknames, like strawberry tomato or husk-tomato or husk cherry or bladder cherry. In Hawaii they’re called poha, and they are loved as both plants and ingredient (particularly in jam). The plant was first recorded there in 1825 and now grows wild, though it’s cultivated there, too.
BITTER NIGHTSHADE / EUROPEAN BITTERSWEET
Solanum dulcamara
Solanaceae family
Throughout the US and Canada
This perennial vine is as likely to show up in neglected flower beds as it is near a marsh or river. Its flowers are small, a lovely purple with a yellow center. Its berries ripen from a hard green to a brilliant red and resemble tiny cousins of tomatoes. They are ripe when tomatoes happen to be ripe: high summer to early fall. They’re both in the nightshade family, but tomatoes are great to eat, and this guy isn’t.
All parts of the plant are toxic. Supposedly it has its “bittersweet” name because the stem and roots, when chewed, taste bitter and then sweet, but I’m not going to put that to the test myself. Just handling this plant can give you a rash. The berries are alkaline (as nightshades are wont to be), and eating a small quantity can induce nausea, vomiting, and other unpleasantries.
Native to Europe, Africa, and Asia, bitter nightshade was introduced as a cultivated ornamental and got somewhat out of hand. It grows in North America from coast to coast, more in the North than the South. It is a bane of gardeners, as it can be tricky to eradicate once it settles in. I think it’s cute, but then again, it’s not growing in my yard.
Harvesting and Storage
In most places ground cherries will be ripe around July or August. Don’t eat the leaves or unripe berries—they’re not a stand-in for tomatillos, and they’ll make you queasy. It’s easy to tell when you’re on the right track, because the husk of a ripe ground cherry turns yellow, and then the fruit usually falls to the ground. The husk will be a little crackly and dry. Pull it off like you are opening a present, and eat the berry inside.
If any of the fallen ground cherries you gather are not quite as luscious tasting as you’d like, take heart: Harvested ground cherries will continue to ripen at room temperature. They’ll just get better and better. Ripe ground cherries will stay good under refrigeration for five days or longer, but I simply keep them out at room temperature and prey on the ones with the most dried-out husks (keep them in their husks until you’re ready to use them). I’ve read that they’ll keep spread on trays or in mesh sacks in cool, dark places for up to 3 months, but I’ve never had any stick around that long. I’d recommend freezing only in instances when you plan to cook or puree the fruit later; remove the husks first. For long-term storage, dehydrate ground cherries and render them into raisin-y nibbles (those seeking their nutritional benefits often buy them this way, as they are easier to store and transport).
Culinary Possibilities
I like the first one of the year best, eaten out of doors while it’s still warm from the sun. Ground cherries are the perfect plant for people who like to indulge in garden snacks, or those who go on country walks in open areas between vast planted fields. But otherwise, ground cherries are tastiest after they’ve ripened a couple of days off the plant.
The bright and sunny flavors come through best when the fruit is enjoyed raw, or flash-cooked (despite the yearnings of that Dispatch reader so many years ago, pie is not my favorite way to put them to use). Savory-sweet raw relishes and salsas dotted with fresh herbs show them off to fabulous effect. If you have a bumper crop to contend with, the usual bonanza of jams, chutneys, and preserves will do just fine (bonus: Ground cherries are high in pectin).
