Frozen Pears冻梨

李梓嫣

Are there black pears in the world？ Have theygone bad？ No， no， no， they are special fruit in NortheastChina—frozen pears.

After November， the temperature in NortheastChina will drop to zero degree or even lower. And thetemperature will rise again until March or April of the nextyear. Such a long winter makes the Northeast a naturalrefrigerator. In such environment， people herehave the custom of ice and snow diet. Atypical example is frozen pears.

The custom of eatingfrozen pears in Northeast China has a history of at least one thousand years. TheKhitan（ 契丹） people of the Liao Dynasty had the habitof eating frozen pears. According to documents（ 文献），after they picked pears in autumn， the Khitan placedthem in the cold outdoors， covered them with snow，froze them， and thawed（ 解凍） them. Did this severaltimes. The frozen pears were ready.

How should we eat such hard pears？ In NortheastChina， frozen pears are generally soaked（ 浸泡） in coldwater or directly thawed at room temperature. Frozenpears are rich in juice and they taste sweet and cold.

2023， with the popularity of Harbin， more and moresouthern tourists came here to travel. In order to suit thetaste of southerners， northeasters developed many newways to eat frozen pears， such as frozen pear osmanthustea（ 冻梨桂花茶）. Frozen pears are cut into slices and putinto a flower shape. Some osmanthus flowers are put intoit. After being poured with pear juice， frozen pears willbloom. Because osmanthus flowers are a kind of food thatrepresents the south， frozen pear osmanthus tea is regardedas integration（ 融合） of the North and the South.