besides grocery shopping at
supermarkets like Tesco and Carrefour
we did drop by local wet markets too
just to look around
wet market offers varieties in terms of
local vegetables, and definitely
the local fruit definitely look tempting
it’s not difficult to find a fruit store
not necessary in wet market
can easily locate one among the street stores
this is supposedly a peach
they call it a “oil peach” 油桃
a.k.a. Nectarine
but it looks like an apple
and tastes like a plum
mutant!! GM-ed fruit!!
I prefer the classic furry pink peach better
but this wasn’t the season yet
this is a Pi-Pa 枇杷/琵琶果
the taste is quite tasteless
I already forgot how it tasted like, actually
it’s more commonly used for
herb medication if you
happen to know this one
the cough and throat soothing syrup
but wait a minute, looks like
I got it all wrong, browsing the
ingredients list from the official site
there’s no Pi-Pa fruit in there
it’s just Pi-Pa leaf
what?? and they are calling this a
Pi-Pa Syrup
so the fruit is actually a by-product
since the leaf has got more commercial use
yup.. Pi-Pa 琵琶 is
also the instrument
so the fruit is named after
the instrument or vice versa
Wiki states that it’s the former
this is Bayberry 楊梅
tastes sour but it’s pretty juicy
more commonly consumed in
pickled form,
saltish, sweet, more yummy
this is real good
mini golden mango
locally grown at HaiNan
HaiNan is doing pretty well
with all the tropical fruits which were
previously imported hence rare
I even saw HaiNan Rambutan
and it’s real cheap
sale item at Carrefour
(price quoted in 1/2 Kilogram unit)
this is real good too
my dad swallowed at least
1.5 kg I think
sweet and juicy
try squeezing the fruit and
there you get the
fresh cream-colour lychee juice
they nickname this
“Smile of Empire’s Concubine” 妃子笑
the story went all the way back to
Tang Dynasty where
the “notorious” Yang Gui Fei was
crazily in love with this particular lychee
“and the emperor had the fruit,
which was only grown in southern China,
delivered by the imperial courier's fast horses,
whose riders would take shifts
day and night in a Pony Express-like manner,
to the capital.”
Most historians believe the fruits were
delivered from modern Guangdong, and
the capital, Chang An City 長安城 is
located at modern Xi’An 西安
Fruits for thought:
I actually prefer to buy fruits from
supermarket compared to local vendor
because of the price
first:
some they don’t even label the price
second:
they do place a label yet
when you start choosing
they tell you that
oh the price tag is for the inferior one,
the one you took is 1st class
third:
the price is quoted in the
Chinese unit of measurement, Jin 斤
which is equivalent to 600g
yet.. the weighing machine runs
by the modern unit of grams of kilograms
do they actually take the
trouble to convert?
I don’t think so
especially if you
do not look like the regulars
I guess they will just
take advantage of the 100g difference
fourthly
some more established one
print out the price label
quoting the price per KG and weight
but what about the smaller vendor?
they place the fruits on
the weighing machine for 30 secs
before you have the chance to
take a good look at the weight
it has been removed and
they mumble the calculation to themselves
“Sir, here’s your fruit at XX RMB”
so we usually ended up
paying more for the fruits
compared to the main meals
arrrghh
I wish I have more faith in human
unfortunately I don’t
go back to Tesco and Carrefour then
and you can choose all you want
please do this at moderate manner
you don’t need a magnifying glass, do you
(making no reference to the lady in the photo)
