Crack seed (Chinese: 話梅; pinyin: Huàméi) is a category of snacks that originated in China. It is highly popular in many regions, such as Hawaii. Crack seed are basically preserved fruits that have been cracked or split with the seed or kernel partially exposed as a flavor enhancement. Common Chinese terms for this type of snack are Li hing mui and see mui . The snack arrived to Hawaii with Cantonese immigrants in the 19th century, when they were brought to work in the plantations.
The flavours are varied, ranging from extremely sweet and salty to sour flavours. Flavours can include rock salt plum, honey mango, licorice peach, or any kind of combination of fruits, flavours and type of preservatives used. The largest flavour innovator in the crack seed market is the Yick Lung Company (translates to 'profitable enterprise'), which produces and distributes many varieties. What originally was a preserved fruit has become a favourite snack in Hawaii and a sample of a cultural food.
Crack seed stores also sell candies such as gummi bears, and Sour Patch Kids, coated with Li Hing Mui.
Famous quotes containing the words crack and/or seed:
“Spread outward. Crack the round dome. Break through.
Have liberty not as the air within a grave
Or down a well. Breathe freedom, oh, my native,
In the space of horizons that neither love nor hate.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days.... Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does not ask our leave to germinate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)