Italic | Cui Fangchun
On December 2, 2020, the morning after arriving in Wanning, a friend who lives in Shenzhou Peninsula handed me a bag of fruit, "The tree is knotted, put the skin yellow for a few days and then eat it." After saying that, he hurried away. When I got home, thinking about my friend's instructions and looking at the big, green and strange 8 fruits, I was reminded of a story.
During the Spring Festival in 2018, my little sister's family of three drove to Sanya for a trip, and on the night of returning to the peninsula, my nephew Xiaoqing gave me and my wife a bag of various fruits. Among them, there are a few stiff, slightly shiny, turquoise skins, and the fruit that is larger than an egg is surprising. Because of the bad teeth, we touched it, swept it, and put it in the fruit basket.
Early the next morning, my sister called: "Brother, don't eat those few fruits with green skins like eggs." It was neither sweet nor sour, so hard that it was as hard as a stone, so astringent that it could not move its tongue. Just now, I put it in the rice pot and steamed it for more than twenty minutes, and I couldn't leave it apart when I took it out or didn't move it. The seller said it was a delicious lucuma fruit, what is this! Let people pit, let people pit. She was a little indignant. In fact, the vendors who sell fruit do not pit people, but we ourselves do not know how to "put it and eat it again".
Lucuma fruit, alias fairy peach, egg fruit. Rich in sugar, starch, phosphorus iron calcium, crude fat, vitamin C and carotene and other nutrients and 17 kinds of essential amino acids, it has the effect of helping digestion, refreshing the brain, dissolving phlegm and supplementing the kidneys, calming pain, activating blood and strengthening the body, lowering blood pressure and lowering lipids. In addition to raw food, jams, ice cream, drinks and cider can be made. Its fruit is spherical, green when immature, yellowish green to orange-yellow when ripe, and smooth and thin in skin. The flesh is orange-yellow, rich in starch, the texture is like egg yolk, the aroma is fragrant, the water content is less flavorful and slightly sweeter, and its taste is between sweet potato and durian. 1-2 seeds, 3-4 large fruits, mostly oval. Lucuma fruit needs to be stored for 4-7 days after ripening and picking before eating. Those who don't know how to buy and eat, must be the teeth can not drag the tongue, steaming is not cooked and cooked is not rotten.
Lucuma trees are warm and drought-tolerant, and sandy soils are the most suitable for cultivation, with tree heights of up to 6 meters. It is native to cuba and tropical North America, mainly distributed in Central and South America, northeast India, northern Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand and other countries and regions. Introduced to China in the 1930s, it was planted in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and Yunnan. Unfortunately, as a migratory bird, I only saw its ripe fruit in supermarkets and fruit stalls.
I was fortunate enough to see the trees and the lucumas on the trees, and it was Gengzi who went to visit a friend's house on the peninsula in the spring. In the yard, a young lucuma tree that has been planted for six or seven years has a root diameter of more than ten centimeters, a height of more than two meters, a crown diameter of more than three meters, a round branch, a brown branch, and a narrow and solid papery leaf densely covered with a fluffy new branch, a good lush greenery. The owner told me that the egg and fruit trees bear fruit all year round, and mid-October and mid-February are the most concentrated picking periods, as long as there is fertilizer and water management in place, basically can be eaten continuously. The tree, which has been planted for three years, has now entered its full production period, and can bear more than 200 fruits throughout the year, and her family can see fresh lucuma fruits in all seasons.
As the master said, the roots and branches are filled with fruits from different periods. The lower end, shaped like an egg, as big as a child's fist, some yellowish, some green, reaching out to probe the brain, affectionately clinging. In the middle section, one by one, like Hainan green dates, firmly hung on the branches, the fruit setting time must be much later. The branches are slightly large, only the size of peanuts and rice, and they are the fruit buttons that have just been flowered, and they cannot find it if they are not careful to find it. These fruit set fruits vary from morning to night, of different sizes and colors, and are hidden with people through leaves and skins. At this angle, it made a big square face, but the other angle was gone. Just two steps away, it showed its head and belly to greet you, it is cute.
I walked around with my phone, looking around, patting them on the head and on their butts, and the pictures were beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn't taste it because it was not yet ready for picking. Curiously, I don't know whether I was attracted by the appearance of the lucuma fruit or out of curiosity, I ignored the presence of my friend, and even with my hands pulled open the thick leaves, stretched out my long neck, put my head close to the branch, and my nose was close to a green and yellow fruit, and sniffed it with a twitch. My friend seemed to see my thoughts and said half-jokingly, "Don't smell it, be careful of pricking your head and nose." Keep it for you and bring it to you when you come over for the winter. As a result, the joke that I didn't go to my heart became a promise from my friend. The day after arriving at the island, the above scene appeared.
In the blink of an eye, the fruit sent by a friend has turned yellow and soft, and you can smell a faint fragrance. I touched one, and with both hands gently uncovered the peel of the oily paper, revealing the yolk-like flesh, and tasted it carefully: sweet, sticky, mellow, fragrant...
About author:Cui Fangchun, a native of Qingzhou, Shandong, has been working in banks for 41 years and is a retired employee. He is a member of Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association. He has published several poems and essays, and published a long biography "Memories of the Past".
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