**Name Origin**: It is named after the patterns carved on green plums and is a traditional and famous special food of the Bai ethnic group.
**Historical Origin**: According to historical records, during the Nanzhao period in the Tang Dynasty, there was already the custom of giving carved plums as gifts when visiting relatives and friends, which has a long historical inheritance.
**Production Area Distribution**: The main production areas are Eryuan County and Dali City in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Among them, Eryuan County is the most famous and is known as the "Hometown of Plums".
**Production Process**
**Material Selection**: Select green plums that have just turned yellow. They are required to be large in size, thick in pulp, beautiful in color, and good in taste. Such green plums are excellent raw materials for carving carved plums.
**Carving**: First, soak the salted plums in lime water, take them out and dry them. Then, use a carving knife to carve continuous and winding patterns on the plum pulp. Squeeze out the plum pits from the gaps, making the inside hollow like threads. Gently press and open them into plum cakes in the shapes of chrysanthemums and sawteeth.
**Pickling**: Put the pressed plum cakes into a basin of clear water, sprinkle a little salt to remove the sour taste of the plums. Then put them into an earthenware pot and soak them in high-quality brown sugar, honey, etc. for several months. When the plum cakes turn golden yellow, they can be taken out from the bottle or jar for consumption.
**Characteristics and Taste**
**Appearance**: The finished carved plums have a golden and shiny color. When neatly arranged layer by layer on a plate, they are just like a blooming chrysanthemum, vivid and lifelike.
**Delicacy: Dali Carved Plums**
**Taste**: They taste fragrant, crispy and sweet, with a sweet and sour flavor that refreshes the mind, quenches thirst, stimulates the appetite and refreshes the spirit. They are rich in nutrients such as vitamin C, glucose, and amino acids.
**Cultural Significance**
**Symbolic Significance**: Most of the Bai girls in Eryuan County learn to make carved plums from a young age. This craftsmanship often becomes a symbol to measure whether a girl is ingenious. In the local marriage customs, before a girl gets married, she must, according to the custom, present a plate of carefully carved plums to her future husband's family as a meeting gift.
**Artistic Value**: Carved plums are not only a kind of delicacy in the Dali area but also carefully carved handicrafts, reflecting the wisdom and artistic creativity of the Bai people and having high cultural and artistic value.
**Ways of Consumption**
**Direct Consumption**: They can be directly eaten as dried fruits during leisure time. They are sweet and sour, and are an excellent item to relieve fatigue.
**Ingredients for Cooking**: Through innovation, carved plums can also be used to make a variety of delicacies, such as Carved Plum Braised Pork Belly, Carved Plum Spareribs, Carved Plum Crispy Fish, etc., integrating their sweet and sour flavor with other ingredients to create unique delicious tastes.