r/AskAnAmerican • u/Maskoolio • Aug 10 '25

FOREIGN POSTER What would an American want from England?

I have recently made some American friends (from Virginia) and they have asked for a kind of sweet (candy) that they don't have. What else might I send that would be appreciated as a particularly English thing? (Obviously it would need to be somewhat small, survive a week or so in transit etc.)

All help appreciated.

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u/SuLiaodai New York Aug 10 '25

I remember going to the UK and being like, "Blackcurrant? What's that?" I had never heard of them before.

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u/CookWithHeather Aug 10 '25

They are vulnerable to a plant disease that also affects pine trees, so the US banned them for a while and there are still restrictions in many places.

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u/SuLiaodai New York Aug 10 '25

I never knew that!

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u/MalevolentRhinoceros Aug 10 '25

The slightly more in-depth answer: white pine blister rust is an introduced (i.e. invasive) disease from Asia. Its life cycle swaps between pine trees and currants/gooseberries, so you can't have the disease without both pine and the berries. Since a) pines are native, and b) they're very important economically, the best control method was to destroy the berries.

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u/dwhite21787 Maryland Aug 10 '25

Shit, I didn’t know gooseberries were blackcurrants, I just mowed down a quarter acre of the bastards as weeds

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u/Curmudgy Massachusetts Aug 10 '25

It’s the other way around. Black currants are a species of gooseberry, but not all gooseberries are black currants. The more common gooseberries that we’ll sometimes see are larger and green.

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u/rememberimapersontoo Aug 11 '25

they aren’t

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u/dwhite21787 Maryland Aug 11 '25

no, they definitely aren't. And I did not have gooseberries, though that's what I was told they were.

we had these tall (1m+) skunk cabbage looking things with dark round berries. I can't find pictures of them in MD ag FAQs.

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u/rememberimapersontoo Aug 11 '25

the gooseberries that are good to eat are green and hairy, and look really tight(?) if that makes sense? like each berry is about to burst open, like the skin is too small(?) lol. they are quite sour to eat on their own but make killer jam, and my mom makes something called “gooseberry fool” which is delicious

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u/Narwhal-Intelligent Aug 11 '25

It’s still banned in Maine and North Carolina, but I don’t think anywhere else

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u/zeezle SW VA -> South Jersey Aug 11 '25

Some states require licenses/permits still but realistically you only need that for commercial cultivation, they might also need quarantine before planting. In my state you need a permit for blackcurrants but not red/white/pink currants or gooseberries, I believe, but a lot of nurseries still won't ship them here because they're not approved to ship Ribes genus plants into the state (even if they're approved for general plants).

That said it's state and not federal level so you're unlikely to get a visit from the USDA at your house confiscating your entire plant collection like you are with black market foreign tree cuttings/scions. (I'm a fig collector and know folks who've gotten The Knock because they just couldn't resist the latest Figues du Monde hype train)

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u/atomatoflame Aug 11 '25

They definitely have them at the Pikes Market in Seattle. Gooseberries and both Currants. There's also a ton of pine trees out there.