I'm suprised that it was possible to get 2/3 of the way through the article before mentioning gooseberries. Now if you like a dry sharp taste they are the fruit for you, not quite the full mouth withering dry sharpness of sloes though, but close. I remember an old friend relating how she'd spotted gooseberries in a British street market and innocently trying to eat them raw. However leave gooseberries on the vine until they turn red and become slightly squishy to the touch and they are sweet and readily eaten raw. They are best cooked with sweeteners in pies and jams, gooseberry rhubarb jam being especially good.

I remember on a visit back to the UK getting chatting with a neighbour, an old forrester who'd worked for over fifty years in the Royal Forest of Dean. He mentioned that back in the '60s they'd tried introducing white pine from the USA as a fast growing forest crop. It turned out to be a dismal failure because of the unexpectedly high attrition due to white pine blister. Sensibly it was decided that the chance of peacefully pursuading everyone to eliminate the traditional patch of currant and gooseberry bushes in their backyards just for the sake of the timber products industry was pretty much zero.