Lychee Folklore?

[fladd]

I'm getting ready to start a new year of Food Of The Month presentations to the middle school students at the school where I teach and I thought I'd start out with lychees - exotic, just weird-looking enough to grab their interest, but not so challenging as to put them off. (Learned my lesson last year with mango pickles!)

Does anyone know of any traditional uses for lychees? Any folktales, myths, stories? Any interesting history or facts?

I'm already planning to tell the story of how Emperor Hsuan Tsung had lychees rushed to his palace pony-express style for his concubine, but I'd like something else in addition.

Many Thanks.

[Sharuf]

Many years ago, an old Chinese gentleman friend-of-the-family used to gift us with boxes of dried lychees, imported from China. We kids loved them. You would pop open the shell, and inside was a fragrant dried fruit around an attractive dark shiny seed.

He bought his in Portland OR's Chinatown.

I haven't seen dried lychees in ages, and I do keep my eyes open for them whenever I'm in an Asian market. Don't know if they even import them anymore.

[violet]

well, theres this website http://www.lycheesonline.com/

[Das Ubergeek]

Lychees, being round (work with me here), are one of the traditional foods eaten at a funeral.