Tuesday eating from your yard tip~ ground cherries, not to be confused with Japanese/Chinese lantern plants, which are not edible. Ground cherry plants and flowers are not a garden show stopper, but the tan papery husk hides a little amber ball of custardy goodness inside! Euell Gibbons talks about finding ground cherries while in Hawaii. He shares that the Hawaiians call ground cherries Poha. In his book Stalking the Wild Asparagus he provides recipes for Poha preserve, jam and Poha pie. The green unripe pods are not edible. Kay Young, in her book Wild Seasons, has recipes for soup, sauce, ground cherry honey drizzle, jam and marmalade as well as pie and bite-size popper pies. All sound yummy, but ground cherries are one of those things that rarely makes it in the house. My grandson and I pick them off the ground, remove the tan husk and pop the amber berries in our mouths. How do you eat ground cherries?
- Jill Kuhel
