Tags
berry, cape gooseberry, chinese lantern, edible, fall, foraging, fruit, late summer, nature, nightshade, orange husk, winter cherry
People watching is a widespread practice among urbanites all over the world and although Berlin may not have the popular squares of Rome, it does have its share of sidewalks lined with cafés. When the weather permits, neighborhood cafés and bars appear to spontaneously expand onto the sidewalks. This allows for better people watching, but it also gives us the opportunity to enjoy the little sidewalk gardens that are springing up more and more frequently around the city. A number of business owners have taken it upon themselves to beautify their sidewalks by planting flowers in the small rectangular spaces of concrete-free earth that used to (and sometimes still do) house ornamental trees. On the other hand, some of these gardens have been created by guerilla gardeners who actively reclaim these abandoned spaces and turn them into beautiful, green oases. Lastly, a third type of sidewalk “garden” exists: these are the accidental gardens, which plants have inhabited all of their own accord. It is in this last space where we have recently come across a number of fascinating plants, several of which are members of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) and which have inspired us to do a series of posts on a few nightshade species that grow in Berlin.
Chinese lanterns (Physalis alkakengi), otherwise known as Bladder cherry, Winter cherry, Cape Gooseberry, or even “Love in a Cage,” makes a stunning contribution to the autumn colors that Berlin is beginning to display. However, its bright orange, bladder-shaped husk (calyx) is not purely ornamental; it also hides a perfectly round and equally colorful fruit in its center. This little “winter cherry” is edible when ripe and is filled with twice as much Vitamin C as lemons, but the unripe berry, along with all other parts of the plant, is poisonous (due to the same solanine found in tomato leaves and raw potatoes) so care must be taken when harvesting these fruits! The plant has a long history of herbal uses including anti-inflammatory, fever-reducing, and cough-suppressing treatments.
After coming across one of the above-mentioned “accidental gardens” which could barely contain all of the Chinese lanterns that had made their home there, we were instantly intrigued. The brightly-colored lanterns look similar to the Physalis fruits which can be bought in grocery stores throughout the city, so we decided to investigate further. Once we learned that the fruit was indeed edible, we immediately tasted them and decided they would be a great ingredient for homemade salsa. In fact, the sweet and slightly acidic undertones were complemented perfectly by the tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. See our recipe and photos on our Foraging Recipes page. Now we just need to figure out where we can buy some decent tortilla chips in Berlin!
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Lovely photos! And great post. Now, how does one go about verifying that the fruits are ripe?
Thanks, Rebecca! Thats a good question. The fruits generally ripen in the fall (roughly during September and October) and the husks turn a dark orange red color as the fruit ripens. However, while we were harvesting them we noticed that even the orange colored husks sometimes only contained a small, hard berry in the middle…. So, the best thing to do is feel the berry inside the husk and only pick the ones that contain a relatively large and soft fruit.
On the other hand, if you wait until the end of the fall then you can be pretty sure that all of the fruit will be ripe…. They are called “winter cherries” because they stay on the stalk into the beginning of winter, and at this time the husk starts falling apart and takes on a beautiful skeletal look, revealing the orange cherry inside. I’m hoping to get some pictures of this eventually!
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Very similar to the native physalis species here in the Eastern US. Just ate my first one last week. Very good, can’t wait for the rest to ripen. On ours the husk goes from green to tan to the skeletal look, and the berry gets soft. I have also been eating a lot of native black nightshade berries (Solanum ptycanthum).
Hi Nathan, thanks for your comment! I’m guessing your native species is Physalis peruviana, which seems to be the most popular of the Physalis fruits… it is even sold in grocery stores here! (But I assume it’s imported since we haven’t seen it growing wild anywhere…)
Funny that you should mention Black Nightshade because we were planning on writing our next post about it! They are growing wild all over Berlin right now…. I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of the raw berries, but we wanted to try making black nightshade jam this weekend
What a fascinating plant, with a great name!