When winter is around the corner, can tanghulu, the traditional Chinese candied fruit snack, be far behind? The colorful snack is back on the streets and in cyberspace, creating a sweet sensation on social media by garnering millions of views.
For many Chinese people, the first taste of autumn is a stick of tanghulu, sold at every corner as the weather turns cold. Mainly made of fresh hawthorn dipped in sugar syrup, the snack offers a tart contrast to traditional sweets.
But tanghulu is just one of the many ways that hawthorns are savored. The fruit is eaten dried, preserved, brewed and even cooked with meat. In Xinglong county, Hebei province — known as China's hometown of hawthorn — the fruit's many edible forms are on full display.
Some of the variations can surprise even seasoned foodies: black-coffee hawthorn cakes, prune hawthorn cubes, blueberry-filled hawthorn snacks, fruit leather that stretches more than half a meter, and tangerine-peel-and-red-ginseng hawthorn pills that give traditional healthy-eating ideas a modern twist. Traditionally, hawthorn is valued for helping relieve indigestion.
For visitors to Xinglong, the fruit tastes different when eaten straight from the tree.
"I was completely blown away. Hawthorn trees were everywhere, covering the hillsides as far as the eye could see. Almost every home had the trees right outside the front door," said Ren Qingling, a 45-year-old from Beijing, who visited Xinglong in October with her family.
"The fresh fruit was much more sour than I expected. The locals told me to leave it for a while and it would taste better," she said.
Chinese hawthorns are commonly grouped into two categories by region — northern and southern — according to the Kunming forestry and grassland bureau of Yunnan province. Northern hawthorns, found in Shandong and Hebei provinces, are large, bright red in color with pale spots, and have a sour taste with a hint of sweetness. Southern hawthorns, grown in parts of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Zhejiang, Hubei and Yunnan provinces, are smaller, darker and more sour.
In Yangzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou in Jiangsu province, cooks combine the sweet-and-sour flavors of hawthorns to make dishes such as hawthorn ribs and hawthorn meatballs.
According to The Compendium of Materia Medica, a classic Chinese herbal text written by Li Shizhen in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), hawthorns act as a softening agent when boiled with old chicken or tough meat.
The range of uses depends on how the fruit is handled, and growers understand this.
Chen Yikai, who runs a hillside farm in Banbishan town of Xinglong county, has already finished harvesting his produce. For him, handpicking is key. "Fruit for tanghulu must be handpicked. It must be free of cuts or scars. Intact fruit commands a higher price."
Much of his crop is tieshanzha, or "iron hawthorn", a firm variety used for tanghulu and juice. "It keeps well and can last until May next year," the 53-year-old said.
Chen started growing hawthorns in 2000 on about 6.7 hectares and now farms nearly 27 hectares. He initially ran the orchard as a side business while working in the transportation sector. Now, agriculture is his main business, thanks to the fruit's rising prices.
"The land suits the fruit. My orchards are on high-altitude mountain land with loose soil rather than hard, heavy clay. Also, wide day-night temperature swings aid growth," he said.
Wang Qiong, a researcher at the Institute of Food Science and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told Hebnews.cn in October last year that "Xinglong has ample resources and industrial and geographical advantages, which should be fully used".
"Since hawthorn is both food and medicine, we should identify its key beneficial compounds and increase the value of hawthorn products," she said. "In processing, we should use advanced technologies to develop distinctive, high-value hawthorn products and help Xinglong upgrade and transform its hawthorn industry."
