Tang Hu Lu- ‘ Enchanted’ Inspiration

Yesterday ,I watched the movie ‘Enchanted’ for the first time and was I enchanted!!

I usually don’t get to see any movie full length on TV these days.Blame it on many things-Hubby’s control over the remote, lil angel needs my attention pronto, too tired /sleepy to watch a movie or if all the above are absent the movie is a bore..But yesterday everything was in my favor!Hubby dear was not around,lil angel fast asleep,I wasn’t tired and that’s when the movie ‘Enchanted’ was being aired.

For those of you who are new to this movie here is the synopsis…

It starts as an animated fairy tale and later the characters from the fairy tale meet the real world people. A princess from the fairy tale is ‘thrown’ into the real world by a witch on the day she is supposed to be married to a prince.Here the animated movie changes to ‘real life’. The princess lands in New York!!She meets our real world hero and his daughter but she holds on to the belief that her price[from the fairy tale] would come looking for her and her story would have a ‘lived happily ever after’ ending.

But our [real life] hero says such things never happen in real life.After a while her prince does come looking for her and she is delighted but realizes that she has fallen in love with our hero but can’t say so coz she is engaged to the prince and our hero is dating someone else!!! Sounds complicated, rite..Ok to cut a long story short, the fairyland princess weds our ‘real life’ hero and the wicked witch witch dies…

So, why am I telling you this story ??In this movie the witch sends poisoned ‘caramel apple’ to the princess [obviously to kill the charming princess.]

When I saw that I was reminded of the ‘Tang Hu Lu’ we have very often. Sounds like Greek and Latin..No, not really, its Chinese.

Walking through the streets in China one can see loads of these .They are snacks actually ,popularly known as ‘winter snacks’ but I have seen them all round the year though[,not so easily available in summer though]. It is a traditional snack of candied fruits on long wooden skewers.It looks very pretty and tempting.

These have a hard sugar coating and the traditionally used fruit is the Chinese hawthorn [Crataegus pinnatifida] or Shān Zhā in Chinese.It is a small red colored fruit that resembles a small crab apple.

It is relatively inexpensive but very delicious.The price starts from RMB 3 for the traditional one and goes upto RMB 5 or 6 for the stuffed varieties.You can buy one of these and eat it on the go.If you want them as a take away,they wrap it with an edible paper and put it into long paper bags.They are hawked by vendors with the Tang hu lu skewers stuck to a pole which they carry around. I was not able to click one such pic coz these days they are sold under glass cases and I have to wait till winter for that.Even in winter some shops sell them under the usual glass cases.
I have seen other fruits as well.My fav is the one with strawberry and are nowadays made with a variety of other fruits including pineapple, kiwi, oranges,grapes, plums,and even sliced lotus root .There are chocolate coated ones and some with sprinkles, coated with finely chopped nuts and even some with walnut stuffing! They all taste good but I don’t prefer the chocolate ones cos I feel it actually spoils the real taste of Tang hu lu.

When I tasted Tang hu lu for the first time,my friend had got the one with Chinese hawthorn on the way to the mall.She casually mentioned that this fruit was good for health.I was in love with this street food even before she said it was healthy.

Anyways, after I came home, I checked up on this fruit[Chinese hawthorn] and came to know that it has anti-tumor activities on the skin.It is used as a digestive aid in Chinese traditional medicine.It is also used as an aid to lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and treat some heart related diseases.

That’s interesting and tasty..

I really don’t know if this is being sold elsewhere but if you were to visit China don’t forget to have a bite of Tang hu lu.

Here are some tasty pics for you

The traditional tang hu lu

With kiwi fruit,oranges and Chinese hawthron

Do these pics make u drool?Here is one for you…