Wednesday, March 17, 2010

This has to be one of the weirdest tasting foods...

Yet rather addictiing. A friend brought me some of these. She used to live on the islands and ate these when she could find them. She told me the name, but alas, I can not remember. I'll have to ask her again when I see her. These are dried plums with an indescribable sweet sour salty taste, enough to make your eyes water. I can only handle a few as they end up giving me a tummy ache, but they leave you wanting more.

Wait a minute... good ole Wikipedia, found it on there - Li hing mui is salty dried plum. It can be found in Hawaiian and Asian markets. It has a strong, distinctive flavor, and is often said to be an acquired taste, as it has a combination of sweet, sour, and salty taste. It has also been described as tart, and even tangy. Originally from China, the name "li hing mui" means "traveling plum". "Li hing" is "traveling" and "mui" is "plum." Li hing mui is also good for dry and scratchy throats, as it stimulates salivation.

Then then there was this little tidbit of info - There was also a cancer scare about li hing products; many people believed that li hing products could cause cancer. Yikes!

2 comments:

  1. thats just a plain salty plum. if it has lihingmui on it, it would be red like this: http://www.dcwhawaii.com/samurai/redseed.jpg

    the best is put it on pineapple or in beer

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  2. Hmmm, that's interesting. The few that I had were actually white. I've gotten lots of suggestions for use of the power on my facebook from rimming margarita glasses, to using it on island fruit as you suggest, both dried and fresh, such as mango, pineapple, ginger, etc. But... you're the first to suggest in beer... I'll have to give that a whirl. Thanks!

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