YangMei Time Again

We enjoyed our second YangMei season at the end of June.  YangMei are the fruit of the Chinese plum trees whose blossoms in March are celebrated as a sign of the end of winter. Compared to last year's harvest, this year the YangMei were a bit early and a bit small.  The cognoscente tell us that this is typical of the dry years...years in which the plum rains are not strong during the maturation and ripening of the fruit.  The dry weather, though, leads to fruit in which the flavors are more concentrated and vibrant.

YangMei started to appear in the fruit markets in the middle of May.  These were fruits imported from the far South of China.  And it wasn't very good.  The fruit is so fragile that it does not travel well at all.   My Chinese colleagues advised us to fore go all other Yangmei and wait until the fruit of DongShan and XiShan were ripe.  The fruit of DongShan and XiShan, they say, are the best YangMei in all the world.    

The Chinese, like the French, always link food with a place...so that the food and the place become synonymous and interchangeable.  Yangcheng lake is the home of the best freshwater crabs.  WuXi is the home of the best peaches.  YangZhou is home to the best fried rice.  Name a Chinese city and most local folks will be able to tell you the food for which that place is famous.  Or name a food and they will tell you the city with the best of it.

The best YangMei, at least in this area, come from the shores of TaiHu lake.  XiShan is an Island in the middle of the lake.  DongShan is a hilly region on the eastern shores of the lake.  The land there is hilly and much of it is planted in plum trees to attract the visitors during the plum blossom times.  In the early summer, the blossoms become fruit.  There is only a one to two week window in which the fruit is available.  It is fragile and does not lend itself to mechanical harvesting nor to long storage. So the trick is to enjoy it as much as you can.....and then wait until the next year to enjoy it again.

A friend at work happens to have family who live on a farm in the DongShan area....a farm with a number of YangMei trees.  He and his family carefully picked the best day for harvest.  He was kind enough to bring Theresa and me about five pounds of the freshly picked Yangmei.  His gift is photographed above.

Yangmei do not keep very well at all.  You can keep them for two weeks in the fridge and not much more.  So it becomes a bit of a trick to eat a year's worth in a two week period.  We did our best, but still had to throw out nearly half of the fruit as it went soft and moldy before we could finish it. 

The local tradition is to preserve the fruits crocks of BaiJiu, which is a distilled rice liquor.  The 55% alcohol of the BaiJiu preserves the fruit.  The tradition is to preserve the YangMei in alcohol, and then to use it as a home remedy for stomach upsets throughout the coming year.  At any time during the year, you  just eat one piece of alcohol-steeped fruit and your insides will return to normal, happy functioning. I'm not sure if this is because of the fruit or because of the alcohol. But it is what I am told.

Regardless, the YangMei season has quickly come and gone.  We do not plan to be here for the next one.