January 9th is National Apricot day, which may seem odd considering that the fruit’s growing season is during the Summer and you’d be hard pressed to find any fresh apricots in your grocer’s aisles right now, but they are considered good luck, hence giving them a go in the New Year seems fitting. Besides, you can eat them in a multitude of ways, including dried, in preserves, or as apricot brandy, which just seems a positively delightful way to consume them in the chilly winter month of January.
Related to the peach, the apricot’s velvety flesh is quite similar. However, the texture of the golden-orange fruit is firmer, and the flavor more tart than its cousin’s. Since we easily preserve the apricot, we enjoy this versatile fruit all year long – fresh, canned, and dried. Apricots ripen in the early summer, but they’re quite commonly dried so that way we can enjoy them year round. The word ‘apricot’ in Latin purportedly means “precious”, but further investigation reveals that while this moniker is appropriate, it actually comes from Arabic ‘al barqūq’ (“early ripe”) via French ‘abricot’.
“Early ripe” is appropriate because apricots tend to ripen earlier than most summer fruits. Drying apricots has been a common preservation practice for centuries. Most store-bought apricots retain the bright orange colour that the fruits have when ripe. Organic dried apricots would be more brown in color and the bright orange is a sign that the fruits were treated with sulfur compounds.
Fresh apricots also pack in the nutrients. A 1 cup serving of apricot halves contains 60% of the daily allowance of Vitamin A, and 26% of the daily allowance for Vitamin C. Other vitamins in this low-calorie snack include Vitamin B-6, Magnesium, Iron and Calcium and is also an excellent source of fiber. When buying them in the store, you should choose an apricot that’s plump and that responds to the slight pressure of your thumb. It should be slightly soft.
Where did apricots come from? After doing some digging, it appears that the apricot tree was domesticated in China some 4,000 years ago, so they’ve been around a LONG time. From there, apricots made their way across Asia to the Mediterranean region. The Spanish Conquistadores introduced apricots to the Americas back in the 16th century, planting the trees all over what is now the west coast of the United States.
While we don’t know if they celebrate any sort of Apricot Day in China, we will say that the apricot is associated with education and medicine there. The classical word 杏壇 literally means “apricot altar” and is still commonly used in the written language to describe an educational circle. In fact, there’s a story that Confucius taught his students surrounded by a grove of apricot trees, so we’d imagine that strong and lasting imagery of a philosopher teaching his students would lead to popular connotations of education by Chinese society some centuries later. We already know that apricots are quite good for you, but traditional Chinese medicine takes that a step further and utilises apricot kernels quite freely. Since the Chinese are believed to have domesticated the apricot tree, it’s only fitting that it also bears significance there.
Today, while the US is not among the top producers of apricots globally, 95% of the apricots grown in the United States come from the San Joaquin Valley in California. Apricots are tasty, healthy, and should be eaten whenever possible. Therefore you should enjoy apricots – in whatever form you can find them – in celebration of these wonderful golden fruits.
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