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foooood in china

remember the kumquats?

last time i went to portugal, my parents proudly showed me the progress of their “tiny clementina’s tree”. it’s a cute little tree that they purchased way before i came to china, but to which i never paid much attention. and it turns out that it wasn’t clementines that tree was growing – it was kumquats!! lots of them! i was in shock, and incredibly happy to be putting my new asian knowledge to work! :)

but this, i think, is something we don’t see in portugal (or europe) so often. they’re called pomelo, or youzi (柚子) in mandarin.

pomelo peeling

in china they’re on display on every supermarket (both fresh and candied) or street fruit stand and they look like green-yellowish oversized lemons (hence their latin name, citrus maxima). inside, there’s a really thick rind that you need to remove completely to reach the juicy pulp.

inside!

they taste not as tart as lemon, and not as sweet as an orange, but with hints of both… it’s probably closer to grapefruit, now that i think about it, only sweeter. and oh-so-adictive!!
give it a try if you find it around!

ready

on the next episode of china fruit series, the mini-mango! stay tuned! :P

6 replies on “remember the kumquats?”

They sell it in supermarkets in Europe too, nowadays. I purchased one a couple of years ago, curious about the fruit after I had a try at the new “Fanta pomelo”… It’s good indeed, but I’m too lazy to go through the thick skin every time, so I didn’t buy it anymore. I didn’t know it was Chinese, though ! And I still have to taste the kumquats, the spelling only is already attractive :-)

We bought one a couple of weeks ago and just tried it yesterday! It really tastes like something between orange and lemon :-) However, I’m addicted to oranges, so the pomelo was a bit on the tart side to me.

I averaged about a pomelo per day for about a month this winter. I love those things, but eating a whole one myself is almost certainly not a good idea. I endured however, until I just couldn’t stand them anymore.

I suppose I’ll wait until next winter to lose myself once again in the pomelo.

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