Saturday, April 24, 2010

FSO trees (2) Gingko trees




This is not my original post for FSO. This is a supplement to the http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2010/04/friday-shootout-honoring-trees.html
http://mytownshootout.blogspot.com/

http://mytownmrlinky.blogspot.com/

Thanks for some of your comments on the Gingko tree. This afternoon, I dropped Sam off to karate and found there is a gingko fruit in the Wesley School. I have much fun writing about Gingko, and I am writing for many of you who have heard about Gingko and that it is good for our memory. For the Chinese, Gingko is valued for the seeds. The seeds are made into desserts and is very expensive.

The gingko fruit is similar to a plum, except the smell is so vile that apart from the Chinese, no body would want to handle it because it really smells like shit.

Last year, my friend M came with a big bag of semi precessed seeds, her husband had kindly removed the smelliest yukkiest pulp. I brought them home, and had to keep them outside to dry. The water engineer refused to let me take them in. He kept saying. YUK! YUK!

When I thought they were dried, I kept them in glass jars and kept them in the fridge. I was lazy to use them, because preparing them involved more troublesome work of cracking the shell and them peeling the membrane. Maybe I was subscious about the awful smell.

Months later, I opened the jars, the seeds had gone mouldy and there was still a smell. I threw them out.

On Good Friday, I snapped these two photos of the Chinese picking the gingko fruits at the Mt Albert War Memorial Park. One man had a long pole, presumeably with a hook to shake the fruits.

My friend C says it was too early to get the fruits, and made a date to go to M's house to pick here. I didn't go, it would be History repeating, YUK! YUK!.

According to Ethnobotanist James Wong , you crush some gingko leaves, and steep with in hot water. Daily consumption will improve your memory. The tea is quite pleasant, I have tried them many times.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/features/growyourowndrugs/episode3.shtml

I did the following two posts last year. They are more informative and entertaining.
http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2009/11/gingko-biloba-pak-gou-tea.html

http://ann-mythoughtsandphotos.blogspot.com/2009/04/gingko-biloba-pak-gou.html

2 comments:

Serline said...

Have a funny story about Gingko... I once had a craving for it but it was out of stock at our regular supermarket, and Hubby went on a quest at another supermarket in Phuket. He roamed forever through the disorganized aisles and tried to explain to the staff and other patrons what he was looking for, to no avail. Finally, he gave up. The next day, he asked his Thai colleagues what the name was. After lots of head scratching, someone blurted, "Do you mean Pek Kuay?" I guess the Chinese roots of this seed was also firmly entrenched in the Thai culture, that they simply adopted its Hokkien name.

Ensurai said...

Hi I have always wanted to be under a gingko tree and get some of its fruits....
Want to know more about this fruit...