Pear & Snow Fungus Tonic Soup 雪梨雪耳湯

With the change in the weather in Hong Kong really kicking in this month, the famous humidity of the long, long summer has dropped away, leaving cool and very dry days behind.  My little girl has a 'hot' nature according to Chinese Medicine, with dry skin, hot body and easy perspiration and thus the sudden dryness of the weather has inflamed her 'hot' nature to the point where she has also been getting a lot of nose bleeds.  

The Chinese, naturally, have a healing soup for everything and so there are plenty of soups that soothe the heat of the body.   I bustled myself down to the wet market today to get the fresh ingredients to make a little pot of the traditional Chinese healing and strengthening soup known as Pear & Snow Fungus Tonic Soup, or 雪梨雪耳湯, that helps to soothe and tonify the body to more easily make the transition into the dryer cooler temperatures of the autumn.

Chinese Pear Herbal Tonic Soup 川貝雪梨湯

One lovely autumn day long, long ago, my Grandma, the dearest stubbornest little old Chinese lady that ever was, decided enough was enough!  She had waited and watched over the large pear tree in our neighbor's yard, just drooping with ripe juicy fruit, for days upon days.  Our neighbors evinced no interest at all in their luscious pears and they were starting to fall to the ground and rot.  

Waste not, want not was ever my Grandma's motto, and so very early that morning she, a little old Chinese lady armed with a big long stick, marched over to our neighbor's garden fence and began to knock those juicy pears right out of the tree.  Whatever fell outside the fence was hers and she came proudly  home that day with huge bagfuls of pears.  

My 爸爸 was so exasperated!  "You could have been shot!" he huffed.  But Grandma didn't care one whiff and soon a delicious potful of Chinese Pear Herbal Tonic Soup  川貝燉雪梨 was simmering on the stove.  I still remember that first golden spoonful of deliciously sweet, light, soothing soup.  Just the thing to sooth and heal sniffles and a cough.  There's really nothing quite like Grandma's pear soup!