>>1419537>I don't consider deadly nightshade a look-alike to black nightshade, but some people literally can't tell the difference so bear that in mind as well.This so much. Solanum nigrum (aggregate/complex) got such a bad rep just because some dumbasses confused them with Atropa belladonna in the past, and even more dumbass news reporters who didn't do their research then blamed belladonna poisoning symptoms on S. nigrum too.
Ripe(!) black nightshade is perfectly edible in the same way that ripe tomato is (unripe fruit and stems/leaves have solanine or related toxins, but so does tomato, aubergine and many other nightshades nobody is paranoid about), kind of a shame it was never cultivated in Europe the same way tomato was in South/Central America. The wild tomato (S. pimpinellifolium) has about same size fruit as S. nigrum, so I can only imagine what could've been if we had bred black nightshade to beefsteak tomato size - it's an extremely resilient plant that easily withstands moist summers without succumbing to blight (like tomato does), doesn't have high demands to soil and water (it grows in fucking gaps between balcony tiles here and flowers way into December), and finally it's blackberry-tier full of polyphenols/anthocyans.
Sure, it's an acquired taste, but not bad at all. I always eat the ripe fruits when weeding in my garden.
Same goes for the native European physalis (alkekengi), those are very tasty too when fully ripe, a heavenly mix of grape, orange and tomato flavour, yet most gardeners discard them because tell-tales classify them as "toxic"
