A greenish-yellow to yellow-orange cherry the size and shape of a cherry tomato, surrounded by a paper-thin, bladder-like puffy pointed “nodule” made of a dried calyx that turns greyish-green when ripe. The fruit contains few seeds, which are eaten along with the pulp. The berries are juicy, refreshing, have a sweet and sour, slightly astringent, spicy taste, and their delicate aroma is remotely reminiscent of very sweet cherry tomatoes and strawberries or pineapple.
Unripe fruits can be poisonous! The fruit is ripe as soon as the lantern-like calyx around the flower dries and looks like paper.
The paper wrapper provides good protection and is not advisable to remove until the time of use, but it quickly becomes moldy in a humid environment. Before consumption, the fragile surrounding leaves are opened and turned “inside out” downwards from the fruit – this creates a very attractive decoration. The leaves can also be plucked and then the fruit is used whole or cut in half.

It is most often eaten fresh, where its decorative appearance is used – on cheese or meat platters, on desserts, with meat dishes as a garnish or in salads. Physalis is also served boiled in wine and syrup, it is used to prepare jelly or preserves (the smooth skin prevents the penetration of sugar, so the physalis must be pierced
or halved several times beforehand). It is also available dried.

Native to South America, it is grown mainly in subtropical regions, in southern Africa, Kenya, Colombia and New Zealand.