Sharing Sea Buckthorn

Mongolia’s climate isn’t conducive to growing a lot of fruit, but the berries grown in Mongolia pack a pretty big punch. Elderberries, sea buckthorn, and currants (red and black) grow well here. They’ve been cultivated for a long time but also grow wild. Industrialized and informal industries have been built around them.

You can find sea buckthorn candy, juice, concentrate, oil, extract, jam, and even wine in Mongolian grocery stores. In the Fall, you can buy fresh berries from vendors in markets and on sidewalks. When I found out how expensive sea buckthorn was in U.S. health food stores, I started bringing packets of concentrate to the U.S. as gifts for people who liked the peculiar flavor and health benefits.

Sea buckthorn is high in antioxidants, vitamins that support immune health, and beneficial minerals. It’s an acquired taste. For me, there’s a hint of “bile” in the smell of it. I struggle to finish a cup of hot sea buckthorn juice without adding a lot of extra sugar or honey, which probably negates the health benefits of drinking it. I like its citrusy tang, but that aftertaste isn’t my favorite.
Many Mongolians have sea buckthorn bushes in their yards. Some people have small orchards. The bushes can grow to be tree-sized, and even when neglected, they produce a ton of berries. Our neighbors have three sea buckthorn “trees” with large branches that hang over our wall. In the Fall, family members (usually the mom and the kids) sit on top of our shared wall and try to harvest as many berries as they can. Their trees are heavy producers. I’m sure they keep their extended family stocked up on sea buckthorn every year. The berries they leave on the overhanging branches certainly keep my family stocked up.

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Each year, I prune the branches back. While doing so, I harvest several pounds of plump, perfectly ripe sea buckthorn. I wash and freeze them because we don’t use them much, and I usually end up giving them away to visiting elders, who are happy to get their hands on homegrown sea buckthorn.

Last Fall, while cleaning out tomato vines in the greenhouse, I heard some activity on the wall. I had a few Korean melons I wanted to give to our neighbors as a thank-you for another year of sea buckthorn berries. I saw a teenage boy sitting on the wall, just above the covered bin Aagii built for garbage pickup. I handed him the melons, and in my rough Mongolian, I told him to give them to his mother. He thanked me in English. I took that as my opening to thank him in English for letting us have nice berries every year. He replied, “Oh, these aren’t mine.”

That was another boy’s head popped over the top of the wall. That was also when I noticed that the berries being collected were going into a reusable water bottle, not a big plastic bowl or re-purposed Russian jam bucket. The boys spoke excellent English and told me they lived down the street. I confessed that I thought they were the neighbors and told them to take as many berries as they wanted from our side of the wall.

I went back into the greenhouse, slightly embarrassed. Then, I remembered the Korean melons I had given them. I went back over to the boys to tell them how to peel and slice them. The boy on the other side of the wall had already started eating them. I’m not sure what he did with the rind, but he said he really liked them—they tasted like a sweet cucumber.

I was happy the melons were being eaten and enjoyed by someone, even if they hadn’t made it to my neighbor’s hands. I’ll have to properly put together a basket of fruit and veggies for the neighbors next year. I may have to walk over and knock on their front door instead of just handing it over to someone perched on the wall.

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