American actress Alicia Silverstone assured her fans that she is “alive and well” after giving in to one of life’s most irresistible, and potentially dangerous, instincts: What is this beautiful plant? Can I eat it? I ate it. Oh, is it poisonous?
Yesterday, Silverstone shared a video from England on Instagram, where she plucked an orange plant from someone's garden and took a bite out of it because it looked like a tomato. (For example, Silverstone pronounced it “to-“).What?-to” — it's not clear whether it was just a playful sound, or whether she actually pronounced it that way). As Silverstone later pointed out, it definitely wasn't a tomato.
She could even tell that the inside didn't look like a tomato, nor did the leaves sticking to the plant. As for the taste, well, Silverstone definitely noticed something that made her say, “I don't think you should eat this.”
It turns out Silverstone was almost on the mark when she said the plant tasted a bit like pepper. That’s because the plant was most likely a pseudocapsicum, which means “false pepper,” though the plant is more commonly known as “Jerusalem cherry” or “winter cherry.” And yes, as several commenters on Silverstone’s post pointed out — it is slightly poisonous.
Alexis Nelson, a TikTok user known as Black Forager, gave a brief explanation of the plant. As Nelson explained, winter cherries are “mildly toxic,” but Silverstone wasn’t in any real danger: “If she ate about seven of them, she probably had a stomachache. She probably got her poop on. But other than that, she’s fine.”
Nelson also puzzled those who were incorrectly posting online that Silverstone had in fact eaten a dangerously toxic form of nightshade (she definitely hadn’t). However, there was plenty of confusion for Silverstone herself, too. When it came to picking a random fruit she didn’t know from someone’s garden and eating it, Nelson offered some very strict guidelines: “Don’t do it, it gives… ignorance.”
