Jujubes 10,000 years old but not for me
"like a bad plum, an unrepentant cherry and an insipid apple."
Sir Richard Burton
I was in Doncaster Shopping Town today looking for birthday presents for my son and in Colonial Food Stores I saw, as I exited, a small tray of Queensland jujubes. I had never heard of jujubes so vowed to look it up when I got home. I also didn't notice how much they cost. Sorry. There were various other Asian fruits there too - Durians, mangosteens and longans and probably others too. For Doncaster and Box Hill - just down the hill - have a very large Asian, particularly Chinese population.
It seems from an agricultural point of view it is a good crop - relatively easy to grow if you have the right climate, tolerates salt and pretty hardy. There are also over 400 different cultivars which I assume are suited to different soils and different climates. In some parts of the world indeed, it has become a weed. I, however, had never heard of it.
"one of the species which will handle salt and the vagaries of weather in southern Australia... better than olives." Food Forest
As the title of this post says, it dates back thousands of years and it is big in China. You can eat it fresh - somewhat like an apple (though much smaller - they were about the size of a plum), or dried more like a date - sweeter and chewier. In fact their common name in most parts is red date. It's not from a palm treen though - it's a pretty ordinary looking deciduous tree.
I suspect however that their prime use is medicinal - as in Chinese medicine - and there are the usual health sites that say it cures virtually everything. I can't remember everything it had, but it has a lot - I think manganese and potassium were the big things and more vitamin C than oranges. But now vitamin C is not such a big deal, why bother? The agriculturalists have their eye on export I think rather than introducing it to the general market. Not like finger limes - which could indeed tempt me. And the trendy chefs do not seem to have taken to it.
It isn't everywhere - only in shops catering for Asians I think, and I couldn't find any recipes that seemed particularly tempting, so I think this is one new fruit I shan't be trying. Perhaps my KL reader can tell me more. Here are some pictures:
What it did make me think though, is how times have changed and how spoilt for choice we are these days. In my day fruit was fairly limited - apples, pears, bananas, strawberries, plums. Oranges were expensive and even tangerines and grapes were a bit exotic saved for hospital visits and special occasions. These days we are absolutely spoilt for choice and out of season too if you want to be so stupid. Almost every day I come across something new. But then some things have disappeared from my life - gooseberries, black and redcurrants, Cox's orange pippins - whatever happened to them? New potatoes from Jersey. It's an interesting world.
So jujubes - funny name. Its botanical name is from the Greek but I do not where jujube comes from. Wikipedia says from the French jujube which is from Medieval Latin jujuba which, in turn is from the Greek zizuphon. But I'm sorry I can't make the jump from zuzuphon to jujuba. Well maybe vaguely. They look quite cute.
