this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
315 points (98.8% liked)

Mildly Interesting

17054 readers
56 users here now

This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

Just post some stuff and don't spam.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I remember my Grandmother having Gooseberry in her garden and joking that they would get her in more trouble than the still she ran on her property.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can someone tell me why so I don’t have to watch the video?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

TLDW: A fungus called "white pine blister rust" can only pollinate in the presence of white pine trees and "ribes" (pronounced rye-bees), which is what currants and gooseberries are. The lumber was deemed far more valuable so in order to save it from the spread of the fungus, cultivation of ribes was outlawed and the US Government enacted a large scale eradication.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Thank you. And TIL why ribeana is called ribeana.

It seems mad to me that the US essentially banned a food group so they could make money by cutting down trees. Why didn’t they follow the lead of Europe and just focus on reforestation and breading genetically immune pine trees?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So that's why it's called Ribena! Ribena is a blackcurrant juice that's commonly sold in the UK.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago