Five-fruit Soup

The five-fruit soup is a folk health food in Zhaozhou, where longan, gingko, lotus seeds, pearl barley and lily root are considered spleen-invigorating and health-improving foods. The five fruits were cooked into sweet soup (sometimes the dried persimmon or gordon euryale seed are used for substitute) to make the good Autumn snack. It is called the five-fruit soup.

Having the five-fruit soup is a food custom practiced during the Chinese Spring Festival. The first day of the Chinese lunar New Year marks the beginning of the year, which is commonly called the “Yuan Ri” . On this day, every household will set off fireworks at dawn and paste Gate Gods on the two doors of the gate tower. All members of a household, young and old, dressed in their new clothes and shoes will gather for fun, with the juniors offering good wishes and tea to the elders. The staple foods for breakfast are usually deep-fried rice cake or deep-fried sticky rice roll stuffed with nuts instead of meat or fish. After paying respects to their parents and having the five-fruit soup, the children can be off to have fun. The soup is cooked with pearl barley, gordon euryale seed, longan, lotus seed and beans, or sometimes dried persimmon instead of lotus seed. Added with some white sugar, the soup is deliciously nourishing, which may be served to guests from the first to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.