Lychee pork

Lychee pork is a traditional dish in the cities of Fuzhou, Putian and some southeastern areas of Fujian in China, with a history stretching back 200–300 years.[2] It is highly representative of Min cuisine. Lychee pork is so named because it resembles the mature fruit of the lychee. The curling of the pork comes from the crosswise cutting pattern of the meat, creating the characteristic shape when cooked. The taste mixes sweet and sour, which is common in southern Chinese cuisine; the sauce is commonly done with ketchup, soy sauce and rice vinegar. The additional vegetable ingredients are yams, water chestnut, tomatoes, and green onions.[3]

Outside China, lychee pork forms the rudiments of some famous Chinese restaurant dishes. Chicken balls and pork balls are two common dishes that customers can order in North American Chinese restaurants. Two hundred years ago, the first group of Chinese from Guangdong and Fujian crossed the Pacific Ocean to the West Coast of America, due to poverty in their hometowns and the prospect of work in the construction of American railroads. Due to the lack of integration into American society at large, the offspring of these immigrants opened up Chinese takeaways and restaurants, bringing the cooking skills from their hometown and modified traditional southern Chinese cuisine (including lychee pork) into American food in order to earn their living. Today, we can still find many similarities between lychee pork and chicken/pork balls.[5]

• Sweet and sour pork