When I was a little girl in Kenya, there was a lot of wild fields behind the compound to explore. I got into more trouble than I care to remember by literally pushing the boundaries and going beyond the fences, but I didn’t care because I always found wild flowers, pretty rocks, and things to forage. We had a family friend who was a biology teacher and always took me along on her class field trips. She taught me how to hold starfish properly, to see the funny side of sea cucumbers, and not to mess around with sea urchins. But out in the fields or the hills, she pointed out the different plants and berries. One of the first things that fascinated me were the cape gooseberries, or physalis. I loved their lantern-like capes and the wonderfully tart fruit inside. Their unique flavour was deeply embedded in my memory and wherever I went around the world, my heart rejoiced if we found physalis.
I don’t remember my parents being that enamoured with them, and neither of them really developed an attachment to the fruit as strong as I did. But imagine my delight when I moved to India and discovered that they were available in copious quantities at a certain time of the year! I remember a particular pastry chef at the Hyatt Regency New Delhi who was fond of making a passion fruit and physalis cheesecake that was an absolute dream.
In Germany, I always found physalis in the supermarket but the prices were so outrageous that I just admired them from a distance. So when I discovered that I had a bush in the garden here in Portugal, it was an affirmation that I had truly come full circle. At first I had no idea what the peculiar plant was with its strange snake-like branches. But I was introduced to this fantastic app called Picture This that you can install on your mobile phone and use it to identify just about any plant on the planet. Life saver extraordinaire, especially for gardeners like me who just dig and prune on a wing and a prayer! So I zapped my hand-dandy app at the garden UFG (unidentified floppy greenery) and my heart raced when I discovered it was a physalis! Needless to say, I enthusiastically cleared a path around it and gave it room to spread out and grow, and oh boy did it grow! This shrub that was barely above my ankles almost as tall as me now! And last night I harvested the first fruits.
It may have taken me over 50 years to have a physalis in my garden, but hey, never give on the magic and the dream.
FrogDiva Thoughts 