Hainan sour bamboo shoots

Hainan sour bamboo shoots

　　　Hainan enjoys spring-like weather all year round, and bamboo shoots are a seasonal vegetable available in the market throughout the year. Bamboo shoots are categorized by their source into thorny shoots, hemp shoots, and magnolia shoots. The first type grows wild, while the latter two are cultivated. Based on processing methods, they are divided into boiled bamboo shoots and sour bamboo shoots. Thorny shoots, as the name suggests, are the tender parts of young shoots that grow within thorny bamboo groves. In Hainan, this type of bamboo shoot is extremely hardy and grows all year long. After just one rainfall, young shoots sprout up everywhere. Harvesting thorny shoots requires courage, precision, and sharp eyes. Harvesters use a homemade bamboo pole called a "bamboo shoot hook," with a hook knife attached to the tip. They insert the pole into the thorny bamboo grove, locate the position of the shoots, then insert the hook knife into the base of the young shoot and pull with moderate force to extract it. These are then processed into sour bamboo shoots. Hemp shoots are the tender parts of bamboos planted around farmhouses, which are cut, peeled, and sliced before being made into “boiled bamboo shoots,” “sour bamboo shoots,” or dried bamboo shoots. In the past, bamboo shoots were generally considered to be of little nutritional value and were very cheap, making sour bamboo shoots a common dish among the poor. But times have changed — the price of bamboo shoots has become the “dark horse prince” of the vegetable market, transforming from the “commoner” to the “noble” among vegetables. In summer, Hainanese people love making fish soup with sour bamboo shoots. It has a slightly sour taste and an invigorating flavor, making it a high-end dish among Hainan’s “hometown cuisines.” If you’d like to try a distinctive Hainan-style home dish, don’t miss out on “sour bamboo shoot fish soup.”