Oranges light the winter lamp, as Xu Zhong elaborates on the beautiful expectations of a once-a-year gathering
Text / Hsu Chung
Winter is here. Every time friends from abroad visit, I treat them to some liu ding, because this is Taiwan's winter-only fruit flavor. Among all the winter fruits, why single out liu ding?
Because liu ding is like a lamp in winter, representing "hope" in my heart. I wrote "orange" and "lamp" on paper and told my foreign friends that the two characters look similar. Through one beautiful misunderstanding, "liu cheng" (willow orange) was read as "liu deng" (willow lamp), and when pronounced in Minnan, "deng" sounds close to "ding", so "liu cheng" became "liu ding". Thus, savoring liu ding in winter is like lighting a lamp of brightness, revealing hope for a beautiful future.
Between Tainan and Nantou, the liu ding producing area along the pan-Tropic of Cancer
A name is just a label; some are meaningful, some are purely for fun. Over the years I have heard many names for "liu ding", and each name represents an interesting and beautiful journey, because I like to use the excuse of exploring the names of liu ding to make one or several trips to the producing areas. I jokingly call it the "pan-Tropic of Cancer" journey, that is, the area between Tainan and Nantou, where rainfall is relatively low and sunshine is ample, making it exactly the most suitable environment for liu ding to grow.
The green-skinned liu ding of Dongshan, Tainan
For example, if you want to understand "green-skinned liu ding", you have to go south, around mid-October, which is the early part of the liu ding season, mostly in Tainan's Dongshan District and Nanhua District. The order of the liu ding producing areas runs from south to north. When southern liu ding ripens, the temperature is still scorching, the chlorophyll in the peel cannot break down smoothly, and it is hard for the carotene in the liu ding peel to stand out, leaving the peel between green and yellow, which the market calls "green-skinned liu ding".
The greener the liu ding peel, the more bitter substances (Limonin, Nomilin) it contains, so green-skinned liu ding is on the high side in acidity. People who like this flavor claim that the fruit acid at this time best stimulates the appetite, and devotees regard it as a rare fruit. The most famous of these is "Dongshan Lingnan Fault Spring Liu Ding".
Lingnan Village in Dongshan District is located north of the Xinhua Hills. On the steeper mountain slopes, longan trees with strong root systems are planted, while on the relatively flat terrain, liu ding trees are planted. Over an environmental issue, to stop a landfill from being set up next to the village, village chief Chen Xianmao, citing the spring water that gushes out at the fault near Beishikeng near Lingnan, raised the banner of "Dongshan Lingnan Fault Spring Liu Ding" to call attention. In the atmosphere of "save your own village yourself", this became a much-watched "green-skinned liu ding" producing area.
Liu ding, met once a year, carries the hope for beautiful things
And so on and so forth. Every season, I appreciate the clear, warm moisture at different levels, analyze the peel aroma, peel thickness, sweet-tart fruit flavor and fine flesh of liu ding, feel the beauty between "sweet rhyme" and "acid fragrance", and then, through taste, guess the condition or producing area of the liu ding as after-meal entertainment. After all, whether it is "green-skinned liu ding", "old tree liu ding", "egg liu ding", "black-skinned liu ding" or "tree-ripened red liu ding", each represents a different beautiful viewpoint, yet each is beautiful in its own way.
Then I will find an excuse to go to the producing area, whether plains or hills, whether to the south or near the north, because I just want to give myself a chance to get a little closer to the stars. I mean going to the orchards of familiar farmer friends to watch liu ding being picked. To me, an orange grove is like a sea of stars, dotted with yellow-orange, and when the farmer stands before the tree, picking oranges is like plucking stars, taking beauty down from a sky of emerald green. At that moment there is a kind of emotion hard to describe, a sense of hope for beautiful things.
That is the meaning of meeting once a year.
Reference: the paper "Quality Evaluation of Ponkan and Liu Cheng and Harvest Time, Fruit Size, Tree" written by Mr. Lin Shengdun of the Department of Food Science at Chung Hsing University.