Sunday, December 23, 2007

Alchechengi – Physalis peruviana



For some reason we never saw the Physalis peruviana (cape gooseberry among other common names) before coming to Europe (or perhaps just didn’t pay attention?). We saw it first in France in 2006 and now in Italy. Alchechengi is the Italian name for this fruit. The fruit is most often used for deserts or sweets. And yes, we’ve seen them dipped in chocolate as shown in this photo, but have not tried them yet. Mark loves them raw.

11/11/09 Update: Ran into this fruit again while spending a few days in Vancouver B.C. One common name for these is "Cape Gooseberry". As discussed in the entry on Wikipedia this common name comes from the fact that it was grow in the early 1800s by settlers in the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa and, I assume, has a strong resemblance to a gooseberry (a different botanical family).

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