The lychee (Latin Litchi chinensis) is a small bittersweet berry covered with a shell similar to the bark. The fruit grows on evergreen tropical trees whose height reaches 10-30 meters. Berries of the motherland is China. The lychee has an oval or round shape with a diameter of 2.5 to 4 cm.
The ripe fruit has a dense red skin with a lot of sharp tubers. In the food, only the pulp of the fruit is used, which has a gelatinous structure, and in color and taste it resembles pure white grapes. Inside the pulp there is a brown oval bone. The main harvest of litchi is in May-June.
The first mention of litchi, dates back to 2 BC. during the reign of the Chinese emperor Wu Di. In those days, the Great Wall of China divided China into two separate states: the south and the north of China. According to a legend, the ruler Wu Di tried to start from the south and start to grow fruits in the northern territories, but due to the lack of heat, humidity and fertility of the land, the plant did not survive.
Angry, he ordered the execution of all the gardeners of the court. For the first time, lychees were brought to European countries for the first time in the mid-seventeenth century. Currently, the litchi is cultivated throughout the subtropical territory of Southeast Asia, where there are no severe winters and the climate is quite dry.
Use in the kitchen In food, lychee is used mainly in fresh form. However, you can also make desserts (ice cream, jams, marmalades), jams, jams, Chinese wine from the pulp of the berry. You can find lychee and dry. In this case, the skin of the fruit becomes woody, and the pulp dry with a stone rolls freely inside. Lychee in this form is called lychee nut.
Fresh fruits are very difficult to store and transport over long distances. To keep the litchi for longer, they are broken into bunches along with a branch and several leaves. At a temperature of 1-7 ° C, the litchi can be stored for a month, and at room temperature, only 3 days. When buying litchi in the store, you should pay attention to the shell. It must be red, not too soft and without visible damage. A brown color indicates a shameful litchi.
Lychee fruits contain a lot of nutrients, including vitamins (C, E, K, group B, PP, H), minerals (calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, sodium, iodine, selenium, manganese) .), organic acids and pectic substances. Oriental medicine doctors use litchi to treat and prevent atherosclerosis, normalize sugar levels in diabetes, liver, lungs and kidneys.
In combination with medicinal herbs and lemon grass, litchi is used to treat cancer and recover in the fight against the disease. You must eat at least 10 fruits a day. Due to the high content of potassium in the pulp of the fetus, its use is recommended in people with cardiovascular diseases, with a high level of blood cholesterol and anemia. It is also used to treat the stomach, pancreas, intestinal malfunction. In Hindu medicine, litchi is considered an aphrodisiac that increases sexual desire and male power.
Lychee has no contraindications to use. They should not be consumed only by those people who have individual fetal intolerance. When lychee is offered to children, it is necessary to make sure that they do not consume more than 100 g per day. In addition, excessive fruit consumption can cause allergic skin reactions in the form of rashes and redness.
