Tanghulu

Tanghulu

A variety of bingtanghulu for sale on the street in Shanghai
Alternative names	Bingtanghulu
Type	Pastry
Place of origin	China
Region or state	Beijing
Main ingredients	Candied fruits, sugar syrup; sometimes chocolate, or sesame sprinkles
Media: Tanghulu

Tanghulu
Traditional Chinese	糖葫蘆
Simplified Chinese	糖葫芦
Literal meaning	sugar gourd
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin tánghúlu Yue: Cantonese Jyutping tong4 wu4 lou4*2 Southern Min Hokkien POJ thn̂g-hô͘-lô͘
bīngtánghúlu
Traditional Chinese	冰糖葫蘆
Simplified Chinese	冰糖葫芦
Literal meaning	iced sugar bottle gourd
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin bīngtánghúlu Southern Min Hokkien POJ peng-thn̂g-hô͘-lô͘

Tanghulu, also called bingtanghulu, is a traditional Chinese snack of candied fruit. It is commonly available in many Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and other Chinese cities. It consists of candied fruits on bamboo skewers that are approximately 20cm long. This snack can be found widely along the Beijing snack street Wangfujing and also there are street vendors who travel from place to place selling it.

Tanghulu typically has a hardened sugar coating that comes from dipping the skewer in sugar syrup, but versions can also be found with a second chocolate coating, or sesame sprinkles. Traditionally, the fruit used has been Chinese hawthorn (山楂 shānzhā), but in recent times vendors have also used various other fruits, such as cherry tomatoes, mandarin oranges, strawberries, blueberries, pineapples, kiwifruit, bananas, or grapes.

See also

• Crataegus#Culinary use
• Candy apple
• Rock candy