Snow White & Gooseberries: The Awful Truth

About a year and a half ago, I convinced Julie that we needed gooseberry bushes. They would be perfect along the back fence and the gooseberries I tried on my mission were very tasty. Plus, Snow White made gooseberry pie. It would be a great new gardening experiment. In no time, I had two lovely gooseberry bushes growing in my garden.

Fast forward to late July, 2009. Harvest time for our new gooseberry bushes and I began the on-line research into gooseberry pie recipes. All of the recipes were about the same: gooseberries, sugar, thickener (usually tapioca) and pie crust. All of the recipes had the same general instructions: remove the steams, steam the fruit, mash about 1/3 of the berries, mix with the sugar & tapioca, pour into pie shell, & bake. So, Julie & I sat at the table late into the evening, removing the stems from the gooseberries. Julie tried one.


“These are disgusting. I don’t like the texture or the flavor.”

I tried a couple. Tart, nothing to write home about, but certainly steaming the berries, adding sugar and baking into a pie will do the trick. It works for sour cherries. I like rhubarb pie. This is bound to be good. Snow White made it.

Julie gave me a look. “I’m going to bed.”

Undaunted, I steamed the berries, crushed up the required amount, and added them to the sugar & tapioca mixture, all in the proper sequence. This was going to be my finest culinary moment. I was going to make the rare gooseberry pie and both of my daughters and three neighbor girls who were coming over for Sunday dinner the next morning were all going to be so impressed with the wonderful pie from Snow White.

I watched the thickening goop molt into a grey-green color. “It smells like split-pea soup.” Julie was checking in one last time before really going to bed.

Now that she mentioned it, it did smell like split-pea soup. I stirred the pot of pie filling for another three minutes & then turned off the burner. I cleaned up and waited for the filling to cool.

I tried it. I gagged. I tried it again to be sure. It still tasted like split-pea soup with three cups of sugar.

“Julie, you have to come try this.”

“Humph. Wha….I already brushed my teeth.”

“Julie, if you don’t try this, I going to start adding things like sour cream to make it taste better. I need your help. You don’t want me to waste perfectly good ingredients, do you?”

Julie was still only half-awake when she nibbled on the pie filling that sat in the pot. She was fully awake when she spit it into the garbage can.

“Too hot?” I asked hopefully.

“That’s awful. There is no saving that. There’s no point in wasting pie crust on that.”


I began to wonder whether I should have noticed that gooseberry pie was a traditional English dish. I began to consider whether Snow White were really trying to poison the dwarves to steal their vast mineral wealth and if her step-mother was actually trying to protect her height-challenged subjects from an evil step-daughter. I began to wonder if gooseberry pie is like animals that talk and clean rustic cottages. I began to wonder if anyone would buy two gently used gooseberry bushed on eBay.

I poured the pie filling into a quart-sized jar and put in the fridge.

“Why are you saving that disgusting mess?”

“Maybe I can give it to Garrett.”