Gooseberries

Consider the gooseberry.

When I was growing up we would be invited every summer to go up the street to the Simpsons and pick gooseberries.  We would bring them home and my mother would make gooseberry pie, reciting as she did so: “There was a snake lived over the sea, /  over the sea in Scio / He lived on

Gooseberry Fool

nothing but gooseberry pie / for breakfast and dinner and tea-O.”

I’m not sure those are the right words, but it’s close.  On the other hand, I couldn’t find it with a google search so maybe I’m mis-remembering.

Today I picked the last gooseberries of the season and now have two quarts stashed away in the freezer.  In our house the gooseberries will become gooseberry fool when a guest comes deemed worthy of the honor.  Gooseberry fool can be located with a google search.

Also locateable with a google search is a short story by Anton Chekhov entitled, “Gooseberries.”  It’s very short but will provide you with much on which to meditate – if you have a sufficiently Russian outlook on life.  Herewith a sample:

“‘Country life has its advantages,’ he used to say. ‘You sit on the veranda drinking tea and your ducklings swim on the pond, and everything smells good. . . and there are gooseberries.’”

Yes, exactly.  I’m feeling very much that way at the moment.