ABSTRACT
One type of cultivated fruit, berries, is notable for its absence or limited notice in Chinese cookbooks and accounts of Chinese fruit and food. It is uncertain why berries should not have come under greater cultivation in China, for wild berries, among them raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries,1 some of excellent quality, are found widely in China and serve medicinally and sometimes as food.2 One factor, noted by Meyer (1911: 49), is that the Chinese appear not to like them, in the same way they don’t like other soft fruits. Another factor, suggested by Anderson and Anderson (E. N. Anderson and M. L. Anderson, 1977: 332-33) for fruits and nuts in general, may be that berries provided too small a return for the labor and space they required. In any case, this is a notable instance in which the Chinese failed to develop a potential food resource.
