I’m actually surprised by these comments. I thought most people ate the goumi seeds. The fibrous coating makes it harder to eat the seeds separate from the pulp, but if eaten together it’s a nice balance. It seems a waste not to eat the seeds given how large and soft they are.
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I probably eat 25% of the seeds. I find them pleasantly nutty/woody. A lot of the time I’m just mashing up a handful in my mouth though and I spit out the seed mass.
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I think that still gives you a lot of the nutritional value of the seeds since the softer seeds are easily chewed up and the fibrous coating that is left behind will not have effectively trapped all the seed mush within it.
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Do you chew them to the point that the seed breaks down into pieces, or just soften them up and then swallow?
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I chew till they break down. If I eat them too quickly it sometimes results in a fiber ball that must be spit, but generally I aim to swallow. 
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Can anyone comment how the Tillamook variety tastes?
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Goumi are olive family, and astringent like olives until fully ripe. Has anyone tried curing/brining goumi or autumn olive like common olives?
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Despite some Elaeagnus species using “olive” in their common names, they are not related to true olives.
Olive family = Oleaceae
Goumi family = Elaeagnaceae
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I mean all plants are related to some extent, but you’re right that those families aren’t even in the same order. Mint and sage are more closely related to olives than goumi are.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying to pickle/brine them. They might still be good!
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Just went out to my red gem and ate 60 or 70 goumi berries. 15 or so at a time…
Tried chewing the seeds… nope… not for me.
Hurt my old teeth to try and chew those up. They need sitting out !!!
When I did try to just chew it all up with 15 or berries in my mouth… all the fruit was gone swallowed down… and all that was left was a wad of tuf seeds that were not quickly or easily breaking down… and had no good flavor left.
Time to spit when you get there.
TNHunter
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Do any of you have Red Gem, Sweet Scarlet and Tillmook or RainTree Select ?
My Red Gem ripens fruit May 10-25… My Sweet Scarlet ripens fruit May 20-June 5.
Just when RG plays out, the SS is starting up good… That is ideal.
I am wondering if either Tillmook or RainTree Select would work to extend my goumi berry harvest time…
Do either of those ripen before or after (RG SS) ???
I don’t need another goumi that ripens with my RG or SS… the two I have are producing way more fruit than I will eat. But I could use one that ripens earlier or later than they do.
TNHunter
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I don’t have Tillamook or RainTree Select, but I do have Carmine, and that ripens a bit later that Sweet Scarlet (overlapping a little).
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I can’t imagine trying to eat 15 goumi berries in one mouth full. I just chew up a few at a time. Maybe I’m just used to bigger berries.
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@JohannsGarden – my red gem are mostly the size of a small to medium blueberry.
15 is a pretty good mouth full.
@ncdabbler — can you tell me where you got your carmine… if it ripens after sweet scarlet with a little overlap… that would extend my goumi season a bit.
I got my RG and SS from OGW… they have Tillamook… but not Carmine.
Thanks
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I only have RG and SS. I’ve seen Carmine sold by Burnt Ridge in the past.
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@TNHunter I got my Carmine scion in a trade and grafted it to my Sweet Scarlet. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tillamook is the same thing as Carmine, but I don’t know that for sure. Carmine has a significantly larger fruit than Sweet Scarlet, and I’ve heard Tillamook is too. Here in NC, I think Sweet Scarlet tastes better than Carmine.
@nosummer I’ve never heard of anyone doing that with goumi, but Lee Reich describes pickling unripe Cornus mas (Cornelian cherries) as an olive substitute.
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@TNHunter Here is my goumi bush yesterday - Carmine with larger fruit on top and Sweet Scarlet with smaller fruit on the bottom. You can’t really tell from the picture, but none of the Carmine fruit are ripe enough to eat yet despite starting to turn red. About half of the Sweet Scarlet are already ripe enough to pick and eat. Every year I’ve grown goumi, I still have Carmine fruit on the bush after all the Sweet Scarlet fruit are gone. The birds and squirrels seem to prefer the Sweet Scarlet too.
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Here’s another picture of the whole bush, with the branches drooping from the weight of the fruit. The grafted Carmine branch is in the top right corner of this picture.
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Man, mine are in full bloom now.
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I have Raintree and Sweet Scarlet. There is no significant difference between the ripening times. But I would defiantly plant Raintree’s, the berries are 3x the size of SS.
However, if you really want an extended season just get the other species a Ebbing’s Silverberry, which is a hybrid of macrophylla × E. pungens , a Elaeagnus pungens Silverthorn, Elaeagnus Angustifolia Russian Silverberry, or even American Silverberry, Elaeagnus commutata, and of course Autumn Olive Elaeagnus umbellata they all reportedly taste simular but aside from AO your not gaurenteed outstanding flavor.
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