That stinky menace, the ginkgo tree, has traditionally been used in Chinese dishes -- and foraged by locals.
On her way to get coffee the other day, Margaret Chin passed a female ginkgo tree outside Holy Redeemer Chinese Catholic Church at 9th and Vine streets and picked up two fallen ginkgo fruits from the parking lot.
She went home to Chinatown, cleaned off the fleshy pulps and let the nuts dry. Then she cracked the shells and added the meaty kernels to a collection in her freezer to be cooked in soup...
Helen Wen, a Northeast Philadelphia resident who came here from China in 1997, says her mother and mother-in-law have often picked the fallen ginkgo fruits from the ground. She believes in the health benefits of the nuts inside and eats them in congee, or rice porridge. Ginkgo nuts are good for one’s memory, kidneys and urinary tract, she said.
Wen said her mother, now in her 70s, used to pick up the fallen fruits in and around Chinatown. Last year and again this year, her mother went with a friend to scour for the fruit in Northeast Philadelphia.
Original source: The Associated Press
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