Juice of Jew’s Ear
Posted by SWG on 08/7/09 • Categorized as Photos, Random
I just had to spread the knowledge. I dearly hope it doesnt taste of whatever it is the name suggests.
My newly found great Chinese English Dictionary NCIKU suggest:
黑木耳露 – heimuer lu – Juice of black edible fungus
So where did they get this name from? I have tried looking up wood-ear fungus on Wikipedia, and there is no reference to anything to do with Judaism.
However a search on Wikipedia for ‘jew ear‘ did come up with this:
Auricularia auricula-judae (syn. Auricularia auricula, Hirneola auricula-judae) is commonly known as Judas’s ear fungus or Jew’s Ear, the name from which it derives the “judae” in its scientific name, or as the jelly ear fungus. It was said that Judas hanged himself on an elder tree, which is the origin of the name. The term ‘Jew’s Meat’ was a deprecatory term used for all fungi in the Middle Ages.
I stand corrected, and should learn some more English.
If you want to drink Jew’s Ear Juice, go to a Lianhua Supermarket.
*heimuer* is kind of food(fungi) in China. It can be cooked, or can be used as medicine. It’s said it has lots of functions, ie cools the blood, Anaemia Treatment, lower the level of blood lipids, Blood Tonic. We are told it’s rich in Protein and Fe(7 times as much Fe as pig’s liver). Oh, it’s for beauty as well(containing Vit. E)!!?? LOL~~~I never believe it. My Translation Software translates heimuer into Jew’s-ear, I found it surprising! Surfed on Google- The name comes from the story that one Jew hanged on a tree, and later people found this tree grew some type of fungus like ears, so…-ridiculous? coincident? Anyway, I think the offical translation is *black fungus*.
Never heard it’s sold as a drink~~~ Wanna give it a go, but, seems there is no Lianhua Surpermarket in my local…Hey, seems they’ve got several taste, original and…HOHO!
Thank you for the lovely review. It was a good fun surfing the info.. Finally learnt the Edible Fungi I have been eating for years, hmmmm. Oh, by the way, I think you guys would find it tastes terrible rather than good, though it tasts okay to me.
If you see a strange translation like this in China, the #1 suspect is always a company called Kingsoft. They make a popular translation program that includes a whole load of outdated or bizzarre translations. Sure enough, looking 黑木耳 up on their website (iciba.com) gives you the translation “Jew’s-ear”.
My theory is that they originally had an English-Chinese dictionary, and they just reversed it to get Chinese-English entries, leading to some common Chinese words being translated as something really strange in English.
I find it odd these days that companies of all sorts put all faith in translation software even when warned by the software maker that its product is designed only to give rough draft translations and not meant to replace a human translator.
More and more people in Hangzhou are speaking good english. Don’t these firms realize they making an ass of themselves when they do not spend the odd few hundred or even few thousand kuai to have their English checked by a qualified translator? Or a native English speaker? Many of these firms hire foreign teachers at great expense to train their staff who go on to learn that their company’s brands and marketing and product literature are hilarious at best and most probably make no sense at all.
An irony.
I was really surprised to see this in the grocery store too. I found it in Beijing, and just wrote a review about it. It’s almost a savory drink as you would expect, and it actually tastes pretty good when drank hot.
http://newatlasbev.com/450/juice/jews-ear-juice/