Chinese delicacies: guiyuan 桂圆 and zaozi 枣子

Tags

Chinese food, delicacies, fruit, oranges

JISHOU, HUNAN — Here’s something I’ve been meaning to write about for awhile: Chinese fruits.

We have the kind of fruits we’re used to in the USA — apples, oranges (locally grown, and in season now -yum!), bananas, watermelons — but also some that you just can’t find in the States. Here are two examples.

A bowl of guiyuan

Guiyuan 桂圆 are also called “longan fruit.” They’re about the size of a cherry, and like cherries, have a single pit in the middle. Another name for them is “dragon eyes,” because of the dark pit inside the eyeball-sized fruit.

Guiyuan unpeeled

To eat them, you peel off the skin, which is dry and easy to remove with your thumbnail. Inside is a translucent, sweet flesh, and inside that is the pit. The taste is a little hard to describe. It’s not as cloying as a cherry, but more like a white grape with a cleaner, more refreshing taste. Like eating a real sorbet without tons of added sugar (or corn syrup). They’re high in vitamin C, B1 and B2, calcium and phosphorus. They’re in season now, so I have a bowl of them sitting on my coffee table.

Zaozi -- aka jujubes

Another cherry-sized “fruit” is zaozi 枣子, which is also known as the jujube. It has no connection with the familiar candy by the same name. According to Wikipedia, jujubes are drupes, like peaches or cherries. Unlike guiyuan, you don’t have to peel zaozi. You eat them like teeny tiny apples.

The taste is apple-like, but not as sweet and a little astringent. In fact, some can be a little on the tart side. The inner flesh is white, like an apple’s, and there is one small seed in the middle. Zaozi have a lot of vitamin C, potassium, phosphorus, calcium and manganese. They’re good, but I prefer the guiyuan.

Guiyuan don’t grow well here in Hunan, since they don’t like frost much. Mine came from Guangdong to the south. The zaozi are locally grown, and of course are very fresh.

Speaking of fresh, a couple of weekends ago, I went orange picking at an orchard within walking distance of campus. The low today was 50 degrees F. Jealous yet?