Mulberries!

And a few days ago, strolling through a market in Zhongshan, I saw pints of fresh seasonal red bayberries, which I almost bought. Then I saw what was next to them. Lo, what are these? They looked like blackberries, but oblong. "First of the season!" exclaimed another customer to her husband. I typed the Chinese characters from the sign into my translator.

Growing up, I always associated mulberries with posies, pickled peppers, and curds of whey; as in, they were just the stuff of nursery rhymes. Growing up in suburbia, I never saw any mulberries in supermarkets, and assumed they were just the figment of some clever 14th-century storyteller's imagination. How wrong I was about everything!