Jujubes: The Chinese Apple That Keeps On Giving

Correction: These are Chinese, we learned at the market today, not Japanese.

What's not to love about this fruit you may never have heard of? The jujube is a resilient, crunchy and sweet Chinese apple (with a big seed in the middle).

In the early days of the 20th century, agricultural researchers were convinced they had found a marvelous new crop for California farmers: a fruit with varieties hailing from China and the Mediterranean. This new fruit was called the jujube.

One early fan of the jujube was Knowles Ryerson, who in 1914 wrote in his book “California Fruits,” that the jujube “asks less and gives more abundantly of its fruits than almost any other tree numbered in the long list of California fruits.”

One look at Ronnie and Tess Gonzaga’s booth on Sunday at the Marina farmers market confirms Ryerson’s opinion shaped almost a century ago. From October to December, the Gonzagas showcase a huge table full of jujubes 

“They (the Gonzagas) pick their jujubes on Friday and bring them fresh to our market on Sunday,” said Dale C. Whitney, the market manager for the Harbor Area Farmers Markets. “If you go to their booth, you know how quickly those brown, date-like jujubes go,” Whitney said. 

According to seasonalchef.com, jujubes need long, hot, dry summers to produce good fruit, Researchers at a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility in Chico collected dozens of varieties in the first couple of decades of this century and compared their performance. They learned that jujubes could put up with extremes at both ends of the thermometer, from 120 degrees in summer to 22-degree cold snaps in winter, without slowing down their production of fruit.

Jujubes contain up to 20 percent sugar, so as you can imagine, they are best used for desserts, although I did see one recipe that used jujubes as a stuffing for turkey.

According to sunstarherb.com, the whole jujube tree is medicinal. The fruit is used as a tonic for the lungs and kidneys and as a good blood cleanser. The Chinese use it to tone the spleen and stomach, strengthen digestion and calm the emotions. The leaves are said to kill parasites and worms in the intestinal tract and are also used to treat children suffering from typhoid fever, inducing sweating to break the fever.

But whatever you do, don’t confuse this jujube with the jujubes you used to be able to buy at the movie theater.

***

Coming next week to the market are organic apples from Stockton. You should be able to pick up some fresh Fujis and Pink Ladies. 

And don’t forget the grapes. MB Farms has six different varieties of grapes, including a cross between the Thompson (green seedless) and the Concord (purple seeded) that is seedless and very tasty and is called, appropriately, the Thomcord.

***

This is the last farmers market column. It’s been a blast sharing information on the sellers, and the fruits and vegetables you see every Sunday at the market. Thank you for all the kind words you have shared with me about this column.

Harbor Area Farmers Market (Long Beach Southeast). Alamitos Bay Marina, on East Marina Drive, one-quarter mile south of East Second Street, just west of Pacific Coast Highway. Sundays from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. (though some vendors are ready to sell at 7 a.m.). www.goodveg.org