#中国地道风物 #
Introduction: Red fruits common in green belts used to be "life-saving food" for the poor, have you eaten them?
After winter, there is a depressed scene everywhere, and even the mountains in the countryside do not have many green plants. However, in some green belts and orchards in the city, a small red fruit is common.
Did you know that in the past it was a "life-saving food" used by the poor? Have you ever eaten it? Let's find out together!
What is the red fruit of the green belt?
In recent years, more and more people have paid attention to greening, and various green plants can be seen in many parks, communities, and even on both sides of the road in the city. In winter, it is common to see a small red fruit, although it is not large, but the color is bright, and the fruit is luxuriant, which can always make a deep impression.
This red-fruited botanical name is fire thorn, which is mostly cultivated today as a green plant or bonsai plant, but it played an important role in ancient times, and tens of thousands of people relied on it to survive famine.
Fire thorn is often called military food and life-saving food in the people, which shows that the ancients rated it very highly, because it can save lives. In some places, according to the shape of its fruit, it is called torch fruit, auspicious fruit, red fruit, flame fruit, etc.
Fire thorn is an evergreen shrub or small tree of the Rosaceae family, fire thorn, the general plant is not tall, but some varieties can grow more than three meters tall.
This plant is suitable for warm and humid climate environment, has a certain degree of shade tolerance, in China is mainly distributed in the south of the Yangtze River, including Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Hubei, Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces are distributed.
Can you really eat fire thorn fruit? Can it still be used as "life-saving food"?
The fruit is small, even smaller than a bean, and has only a thin skin on the outside and a pit on the inside. Even when it is ripe, it tastes sour and slightly sweet. I believe that many people have seen it on the side of the road, and they have also picked and eaten it, and they feel that the taste is really bad. Can such fruits really be eaten as "life-saving food"?
In the folk, it is called "life-saving food", but there is a basis, I heard the old people in the village say that in the past, the grain production was seriously reduced due to the weather, and when there was no food to eat in winter, many villagers would go to the mountains to pick fire thorn fruit. It is dried, ground into flour or made into noodles to eat as a spare food.
Don't look at the fire thorn fruit grows small, but it is really edible. After ripening, the fire thorn fruit can be eaten raw, the taste is sweet and sour, a bit like hawthorn, but not as sour as hawthorn, the taste and softer and sticky.
After all, in the past, the yield of grain was not low, the ancients often needed to pick a variety of wild fruits, wild vegetables to fill their hunger, and fire thorn fruit because of the large amount of fruit, and not easy to weather and reduce yield, the most important thing is that it ripens in autumn and winter, at this time there are not many wild fruits in the mountains, so it has attracted the attention of the ancients, and in the long-term eating process, a variety of eating methods have been invented.
The main component of this wild fruit is starch, and it also contains a variety of nutrients, which can be eaten by men and women, young and old. And after eating, it has a good sense of satiety, so that it can not only fill the stomach, but also replenish energy. Like in the past, when there was a famine, many poor people would go to the mountains to find fire thorn fruit to eat, so it was called "life-saving food".
It is worth mentioning that the fire thorn fruit can also be used to make wine and soak wine. Now some experienced elderly people in the countryside still pick some fire thorn fruits in winter to make wine. The wine soaked with fire thorn fruit is red in color and fragrant, and because it contains a lot of nutrients, such wine is not only beautiful and delicious, but also has the effect of nourishing blood and strengthening muscles and bones.
In fact, the whole plant of the fire thorn fruit is a treasure, its fruits, leaves, rhizomes are medicinal, and the leaves are often made into tea in some mountainous areas, and in the past it was a good material for making tea. The folk even have the saying "take a sip of fire thorn tea and live to ninety-nine", which also highlights that the health value of fire thorn fruit is very high.
Write on the back
Although the fire thorn fruit is very small, it contains very rich nutrients, including a variety of vitamins, especially vitamin A and vitamin C content is very high, and everyone also knows that vitamin A has a good preventive effect on night blindness and vision loss. Vitamin C, on the other hand, has a good antioxidant and anti-melanin formation, which can play a role in whitening skin care. So it's still good to eat it once in a while.
But now that the standard of living has improved, few people eat it as food, or even as wild fruit. However, because of its beautiful tree shape, flowers in summer, red fruits in autumn, and the fruit will not fall for a long time after ripening, so the ornamental value is very high, so it is often used as hedge and landscaping materials, and is often planted on the roadside, which can be used as a hedge, but also beautify and green the environment.
Dear fans and friends, do you know this red fruit? Have you ever eaten it? Welcome to leave a message to discuss!