Cape Gooseberry

Physalis peruviana · Berry

40 pairings

The cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana) — sold as goldenberry, Inca berry, Peruvian groundcherry or simply physalis — is a marble-sized, glossy golden-orange husk berry with a bright, sweet-tart tropical tang somewhere between pineapple, tomato and mango. Each fruit ripens sealed inside its own papery, lantern-like calyx, and is eaten fresh, dipped in chocolate as a petit four, dried into chewy "golden raisins," and cooked down into jams, chutneys and glossy dessert sauces.

Picking a good onedrag

Green husk, hard pale berryDamp husk, soft amber fruit

GoldFirm and bright: salads, salsa, roasted whole, anything that needs the fruit to hold its shape.Buy it

The huskStraw-fawn, drying, still close

Colour of the berryGold, one shoulder still paler

In the handFirm, slight give under the thumb

Smell in the huskFaintly fruity through the paper

Reading a just ripe one. Move the slider and the rest of this page — nutrition, pairings — re-scores with it.

What one gives you

94%

Usable yield

4.7 g · husk off

5 g

Typical weight

one specimen

Keeping ittap a band

Not a 0 °C berry: this Andean nightshade pits and decays below about 5 °C, so the coldest shelf of the fridge shortens its life rather than saving it.

Humidity

70-75%

Drier than most berries at 70-75%: the husk has to stay papery. A damp husk is where the white mould starts, so never wash them before storing.

Airflow

Still air, kept dry

Still air is fine, a lidded box even, so long as they go in dry. Condensation on the husk starts the rot, not stale air.

Ripens on, and hurries its neighbours

Climacteric: it ripens on after picking and gives off ethylene, so a punnet left open beside pears or avocados will hurry them along. The husk damps it down.

Preparing