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| I recently went to chinatown here in Chicago and asked where I might find some chinese vegetable seeds. I was directed to a small shop where the gentleman had some seeds in plain small envelopes behind the counter. Unfortunately they were all written in Chinese! Although the man was very helpful, he could neither speak english very well or write in english, so I asked him to pronounce the names while I wrote them down. I asked him to give me whatever he had. I had no idea there would be so many different types. I have searched around and identifie some of the names but and what type of plant they are but I was hoping that the people here could either direct me or help identify the vegies.
the list Red Han Choi
I know this is a long list but any help with either the correct name or type of vegie would be great. Also, what might be the taste and typical preparation. Please direct me to site if this info already exists. Thanks! |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by loneranger Sunset20 (My Page) on Fri, Jun 25, 04 at 13:54
| From the descriptions, it looks like the gentleman spoke Cantonese. I can identify the names of a number of these in Cantonese (I've probably eaten almost every one of them), but I don't know the English equivalents, unfortunately. In general, "choi" or "choy" indicates that it is a leafy vegetable of some sort. "Gua" inidicates that it is a melon. "dou" indicates that it is a bean. The term "choy sum" is sometimes used in to indicate any number small, leafy vegetable similar to baby bok choy. In standard Chinese mainland mandarin, "choy" would be spelled "cai", but "gua" and "dou" would stay the same, if memory serves me correctly. All bets are off for Taiwanese spellings, but they are rather rare. Based on your phonetic spellings, here are my guesses with the percentage of certainty: Fu Gua: bitter melon (100%) What you may wish to do is to get the gentleman to write down the names of the plants and go to your nearest Chinese market and look for the matches. Otherwise, just plant the seeds in the ground and see what comes up! |
Here is a link that might be useful: Asian vegetable names
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| The red hon choi is the edible red chrysanthemum and the jit gua is the smaller oval shaped winter melon. |
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| A few of the names sound like Toisanese to me, a dialect of Cantonese. With my mother's help on the phone, here is what I can come up with: Red Han Choi - red edible amaranth Most of these vegetables can be used in stirfry or soup. ~Ben |
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| interesting... could "chung ho" be "Tong Ho" and "yao choi" be "Yu Choy?" How about "bao sum chai" as heading mustard or big heading gaichoy? "bo choi" spinach? |
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| sillyrib, pau gua = Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Can you take pictures of the characters? Maybe borrow a digital camera or purchase a cheap one at Wal-Mart? Then you can either post the pictures or send them to me and have them identified correctly. :) Violet |
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| sillyrib, Did you find any more info out? |
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