Grilled Sardines with Gooseberry Sauce

Since green gooseberries are hard to find, I grow them. I love their tartness so much that I am prepared to brave their vicious thorns. The French call green gooseberries groseilles à maquereaux to distinguish them from red and white currants, groseilles, related fruits. The translation is mackerel currants, an odd name if you don’t know that gooseberry sauce was a popular accompaniment for grilled mackerel both in France and England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centu