The ground cherry is ripe when the fruit is yellow or reddish in color. Related to tomatoes, it has an unusual and interesting enjoyable taste all its own.

Linda Diane Feldt | Contributor

I enjoyed Japanese lanterns as a kid, and found them in our yard and in the nearby field where I played. Just in the last couple of years I learned they have an edible fruit , and are really very tasty. More commonly known as a ground cherry, Physalis peruviana is in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. The fruit is a bit tomato-like and can be used like tomatillos. But that is just one use for a versatile fruit.

The cherry is found inside the lantern-like husks.

Linda Diane Feldt | Contributor

The tiny fruits are hidden in a “lantern” like husk. This time of year, they are easily and quickly harvested by feeling for the small fruit in the husk and popping it out the narrower end. The fruit is ripe when it is yellowish or slightly red. The green fruit is reported to be toxic. I have no personal experience with that claim but have tasted the unripe cherries, and they tasted bad to me. Stick with the colorful ripe fruit to be safe.

You’ll find some lanterns with dried up or undeveloped fruit, so go ahead and discard the green unripe ones. In most patches there will be plenty of good ripe cherries. My foraging friend and I recently collected a quart of the berries in about 15 minutes of picking.

The plant needs sun to ripen and seems to like rich soils. I’ve mostly found them near foundations and disturbed ground. Certainly they have been widely spread by birds and other animals and aren’t hard to find locally. A few of my books say they aren’t hardy, but I found some just this last weekend in an exposed place, and the recent frosts hadn’t touched them.

What can you do with the cherries? They can be enjoyed as is or frozen until you decide. My foraging friend makes them into a chutney. Interesting combined with Indian spices and used alone or as a sort of relish. More traditionally, think of pies, as fruit in baked goods, in salads (cut them in half so they can be handled with a fork), jellies and jams. This is an unusual fruit. A little sweet, a little tart, it is pretty versatile.

Here you can see the plant, the cherry in the husk, and the size of the cherry.

Linda Diane Feldt | Contributor

I’m still exploring how to use these treasures and so would welcome suggestions from more experienced foragers. I’ve just enjoyed finding out that something so familiar is more than I ever knew it was!

In about 15 minutes two of us picked a quart of ground cherries.

Linda Diane Feldt | Contributor

Linda Diane Feldt is a local Holistic Health Practitioner, teacher, author and blogger. You can follow her on twitter, visit her website, or contact her at ldfeldt(at)holisticwisdom.org.