Land of Fruit

Ask people in Minnesota what their favorite season is and
many of them will reply, “Fall.” For some, it is the cooler temperatures and the brilliant colors of leaves; for
others it is the start of a new school year or the excitement of football
season. For me, Fall means the start of apple
season.

It pained me a little to think that I was going to be
leaving Minnesota just before my favorite time of year. I would, sadly, miss all of the Braeburns,
Firesides and Honeycrisps, the apple crisps and cider. Hoping I could find an alternative, my first
week in China I went to a market and (even though every travel book tells you
not to) bought an apple. When I got home,
I quickly peeled the “Grown in New Zealand” sticker off and, as I bit in, realized
immediately that it was not the same. As
the soft, pinkish, skin gave way to the pale inside, I quickly knew that the
apple lacked anything resembling the complex sweet, tart and sour tastes of the
apples back home.

I was bummed…

That is, until a few weeks back, when a group of coworkers
went on a bike trip north and east of Guangzhou. I fell behind the group because, as usual, I
was taking pictures. As I biked up to
them I noticed that they were picking things out of a tree hanging over the
trail. I asked my coworker, Sarah, what
they were she said, “here” and pulled a branch down for me to pick some.

I turned the strange, berry-like fruit over in my hand. It had an outer shell that felt like smooth
bark. “Can you eat these?” I
asked. “Sure”, she said. “Look.
Even the goats over there are.”
Sure enough, there was a group of goats that munching on the fruit about
10 feet off the trail.

“How?” I asked,
furrowing my brow and curling my lip with the thought of having to eat
something that looked and felt like bark.
“Here, let me show you,” she said.

I watched as she gently squeezed the “bark berry” until it
popped open. Inside, it resembled
something of a peeled grape. She popped
it in her mouth and then handed me one to try.

Once I opened it, I carefully placed it in my mouth. WOW!
The texture was like a grape but the taste was like nothing I had ever
eaten before. It was a combination of
grape, coconut and…apple. I quickly
reached up and grabbed a few more. “They
are called longyan, or dragon’s eye fruit,” another teacher told me.

After this experience, I was thrilled to find that the
market behind my school sells these.
People go out into the country and collect them and then bring them into
the city to sell, along with many other fruits, including dragon fruit,
pomegranates & pomelos.

Though longyan are nothing like the Minnesota apples I love,
they will be a great substitute while I am gone.