Longan the exotic dragons eye fruit Canvas Print

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This exotic tropical fruit is similar to its botanical cousins lychee and rambutan. However, once you crack the smooth, bark-like shell, you’ll find a sweet-sour juicy pulp surrounding the seed (see the one that is open top left in my photo). The translucent jelly tastes a bit like mango and looks similar to lychee but has its own unique bouquet. Peeled, the fruit looks like an eyeball -- which is how it got its name. Longan is Mandarin for “dragon’s eye.”

Longan (Dimocarpus longan) can be used in soups, desserts and candies, but it is best eaten fresh out of the shell. Originally from India and Sri Lanka, it’s popular throughout Southeast Asia. It’s highly perishable but considered a fruit with good portent, sometimes placed under the bed of newlyweds in hopes of helping to produce children.

WHY YOU SHOULD USE IT: In traditional Chinese medicine, longan fruit are used as a tonic for the heart, to improve eye function, relieve stress and give skin the glow...

I've lived in Hawaii since 2002, 1200 feet above sea level, on the small rural island of Moloka'i. It is very quiet here, with only about 7,400 residents. I appreciate the quiet life after spending 35 years as a commercial illustrator, senior art director and design director for major advertising agencies and design studios in Chicago, San Francisco and Palo Alto California. I've always loved cooking. In 2002 that love led me to a degree in the Culinary Arts just before moving to Hawaii. Since then I designed and built a house, worked in local restaurants, self-published three cookbooks, and took up photography as a hobby. Now retired, I spend most of my time developing recipes and photographing them, plus researching and writing...