I had bought a (stick of) gooseberry plant in Poundland just after moving to the new house, even before we had started work on the garden. I had bought it because it was there to buy and I had been surprised that Nallikayi grew in England. The plant has been growing steadily for two and a half years now and this year finally it showed some signs of giving fruits.
Only after I put the first nallikayi in my mouth and took a bite did I realise that it was not the Nallikayi I knew at all. This has a number of small fine back seeds as against the single hard seed of Nallikayi. After some reference on the net I have concluded that this was the original gooseberry but since our Nallikayi has the same outer appearance, the English must have called it the Indian gooseberry and we have assumed that Nallikayi is Gooseberry. They infact belong to two different families.(ours is of Euphorbiaceae and this belongs to 'Grossulariaceae'. Never heard of it before) Call it what you will, but i have harvested about 800grams of it this year. I have made three bottles of jam (slurp! fantastic!) and made spicy chitra anna out of some more and I have a few more left.
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