Lycium Fruit
Good for vision and the kidneys: Lycium Fruit. Well, I can use improvement. So today I tried the first Lycium Fruit I can ever remember. It did taste oddly familiar, but I can’t think of when I may have ever tried it.Every meal is ended with desert here. However, the Chinese don’t seem to care for sweets. It is almost always an offering of a fruit. I’ve had pears for days now. Sliced or peeled, always pear.
But today, we had the first Lycium. It is from a fruit tree plentiful in this area. The Chinese have for hundreds of years considered it as “a Chinese herb that is used to improve vision and to prevent headaches and dizziness caused by liver and kidney deficiencies”. It is about the size of a kiwi, with a peel that is removed to expose a sweet onion-like core that is both sweet and a little bitter.
The ownership of the orchards is most interesting. (I think I have most of this right.) The government decided to get out of the farming of the fruit but had many trees of its possession. Being for the people, a tree or two was given to each family. In fact, they are awarded in drawings in each township yearly according to the available trees (some get destroyed in urban development). Each is numbered, and a family will be provided rights to particular trees. So all families harvest their own tree.
I was told these lycium were too early. They will be better in a month. Still pretty good.
posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 1:06 PM
Comments: 0
