The Auspicious Little Fruit
By Alice Huang
Kumquat. The mere sound of the word makes my mouth water.
Kumquat is a small, oval-shaped fruit from the citrus family. Its colour is bright and beautiful and its taste, tangy, bitter and sweet. It has a texture that is firm and meaty, and a fragrance that’s refreshing and heavenly — to the point that the French perfumer, Jean-Claude Ellena was inspired enough to use it as one of his key fragrance notes to create the mesmerising Le Jardin de Monsieur Li scent for Hermès.
If you say “kum-quat” (in Chinese 金橘) out loud, you are speaking in Cantonese. It means golden (金) tangerine (橘). As if by magic, my Grandma pulled one out of her pocket one evening when we were together admiring the plants in her back garden and waiting for dinner to be served. She told me it’s a kumquat. I was probably 12 then, and it was the first time I encountered the small fruit, and the sound of its name in Cantonese arrested my attention. I thought she was saying “golden bone” because the the second word (quat) shares the same sound as the word “bone” (骨) in Cantonese. And I clearly was not looking at any bones.
I asked her why she had that in her pocket and she said she kept it there so she can take it out every day and every now and then knead it, to soften it and to remould it into the shape of a gourd. I touched the kumquat in her hand, and remarked that it felt hard and it’d be difficult to re-shape. She said if I was to try and knead it every day, with time, perseverance and determination, I would be able to do it. I now wonder if she was in fact dispensing a valuable instruction for life.
Anyhow, I thought very little of what Grandma said at the time, except for the sound of the name of the fruit which never left me. I didn’t even get to taste the fruit until a few years ago when it appeared in a giant fruit bowl in the office studio in Shanghai where I worked. A colleague exclaimed: oh kumquats and popped a whole one into his mouth. I imitated him, and one taste of it and I became hooked.
It does not surprise me that research has shown that kumquats are packed full of healthy goodness. It is a low-calorie fruit rich in nutrients such as vitamins A, B, C and E and minerals like calcium, copper, potassium, manganese and zinc. Kumquats can bring many health benefits including boosting our immune system, protecting the body from infections, and regulating our digestive health.
Kumquats are easy and fuss-free too. You grab one and you eat it whole; skin, pips and all. And then, like me, you would glow a warm glow and your lips would curl upwards into a smile as the fragrance and the taste hit you in one powerful punch.
Kumquats are in season now and it is especially popular in China in the lead-up to Chinese New Year because the Chinese believes that the fruit is an auspicious symbol of luck and wealth. You will see them served in dishes in restaurants, or used as decoration in shops and homes.
But wherever you are, you should be able to find them in shops. Besides snacking on them, you can do a lot with kumquats. You can use them in salads, cook them or preserve them; here are some suggestions and a recipe to try. If you are a kumquat first-timer, let us know what you think afterwards. If you are a kumquat old-hand, do share your suggestions and recipes. And if one day, you find yourself successful at remoulding a kumquat into the shape of a gourd, you should know that you are likely one of the most tenacious and resolute persons there is around.
FOOD+ would love to hear about the auspicious foods found in your country and how you cook them. You can share it in the comments below or write to the editors. In the meantime, if you want to know more about another ingredient that’s popular in the same season:
This article is part of FOOD+ journal’s “Side Dishes”, more to come.
