(101 Things About Shanghai) Decidedly Seasonal Fruit

Although I previously raved about how I could get all sorts of imported loveliness in Shanghai and so had no need to go crazy with longing from eating only what was available locally, I would like to take this time to write a small tribute to local (or local-ish) seasonal fruit. Not apples, not oranges, not bananas.  It appears briefly, brilliantly, and no sooner do you get used to stuffing yourself silly with it than it is gone.

Right now we are in pineapple season. There are rough wooden pineapple carts parked all over the city, including right out in front of my university. You can buy a pineapple segment on a lollipop sick or you can buy the whole thing for about 10rmb, neatly carved in spirals to remove all the nasty rough bits. It was the brightest, sunniest thing in my office today, nearly as good as a house plant or a good cat.

Next month will be the beginning of the 3-4 week yang mei season.

You’ve likely never heard of yang mei, as they don’t travel well, don’t freeze well, dry badly, and are grown only in neighbouring provinces. They will be in fruit stalls for maybe, just maybe, a month. They are the best fruit in the entire universe.  They are like the bastard love child of a naughty, careless threesome between a strawberry, raspberry and a blackberry. The texture is like a golfball studded with a million tiny pockets of tangy sweet dark juice, like the bursting cells in a perfect orange growing from a center seed. They are awesome.

In winter, fruit is more limited and the apples and bananas become tedious. However, you do have sugarcane if that is what your heart cries out for. In the grim and grey winter months, there will be stands of sugar cane propped up against the walls of the little fruit shops around town and in some cases there will be a man with a sugar cane juicer, hand-cranked, covered in pulp and juice.