This morning I headed for my favourite supermarket. Unlike my regular supermarkets, it is a good bus or taxi ride away so I don't go as often as I would like. However, there were a couple of things I wanted which only that place stocks. Mainly cheese!
While there, at the fruit section, I spotted a couple of oddities, one of which I bought.
First up is 雪莲果 xuě lián guǒ, literally 'snow lotus fruit'. Technically it isn't fruit at all, but the root of saussaria involocrata, a native of the Alpine slopes of the Himalayas.
For scale, the largest one here is a foot long (30cm). Washed (they are muddy) and peeled, they have the texture of a particularly crisp apple and a mild, sweet taste slightly reminiscent of melon. In fact, not much taste at all. However they are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (what isn't?) and at least one study has credited them with anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects in mice.
Here is one washed and peeled. I just ate it.
The second oddity may be more familiar to some people here.
拇指西瓜 mǔ zhǐ xī guā, literally translates as 'thumb (or big toe) watermelon'. I'd go with the 'thumb' choice! Elsewhere, they are known as mouse melon, Mexican sour gherkin, cucamelon, Mexican miniature watermelon, Mexican sour cucumber or pepquinos They are the fruit of Melothria sabra, native to Mexico and Central America. How they ended up here I don't know.
About the size of grapes, they resemble tiny watermelons. Being imported (I guess), they were a bit on the expensive side and I had already spent more than I had planned, so I didn't buy them. As one of their names implies, they taste like slightly sour cucumbers. I'm glad I didn't buy them. For the price of one pack of the things, I could by 50 cucumbers and I already have vinegar!
Apologies for the picture, but as I wasn't buying them, I didn't feel I could get them out the package and artistically arrange and light them.
