Sunday, December 9, 2018

(1053) Mulberry

Many years ago, I took my children to visit my cousin in the south of the peninsular. That must have been the first three years I was in Silver City, a good twenty years ago. I remember bringing two mulberry cuttings and two bottles of mulberry jam back.

For whatever reason, the two stem cuttings did not take. A few weeks later, my mum obtained three cuttings from her morning walk group. All the mobile old ladies from her estate walk between seven and eight o'clock most mornings. These cutting grew into two lovely bushes in her garden today. Apparently, there are two types of mulberry that grow in my country, a local genus and a Taiwanese kind. There were mulberry plantations in the southern part, at least it was so twenty years ago. There was a factory that produced and bottle the jam locally there then.

Fast forward twenty years, those who google internet for vitamin b 17 found that mulberry is full of that interesting nutrient that some people claimed to kill cancer cells. Some organic supplier has sourced fresh mulberry and I was asked if I would pay money in the open market for it. If I want to consume it regularly, how much would I pay for it.

That is a rather difficult question to answer. I had enjoyed sour sops in Sandakan as it was not so expensive there. Here I would not buy sour sop at $27 a kilo. Yet many would purchase it weekly because of cancer prevention.

If I pick only black and ripened mulberry, they last about three days in the fridge unless I freeze them. But if I pick the pink ones, they ripen on my dining table under the fan over a few days, not requiring refrigeration. It is a highly perishable berry, not quite as delicate as strawberry. According to my cousin, the Taiwanese kind is sweeter and the fruits are slightly bigger.

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