Hawthorn Leather and Hawthorn Fruit Chutney (A.I. Powered Home Cooking)

I was faced with a conundrum. I impulsively bought fresh hawthorn berries at the local Chinese supermarket. I had never seen them in a grocery store before, so as a general rule, I try new ingredients whenever I can.

The only familiarity I had about hawthorn was the slices of hawthorn candy my parents gave me as a child and the bing tanghulu — candied hawthorn berries on a stick — I always saw in Chinese historical dramas. Bing tanghulu was out of the question for three reasons:

1. I didn’t feel like making caramel.
2. I didn’t enjoy them when I visited Shanghai in 2019.
3. I’ve never liked candied apples — I hate how the caramel gets stuck on my teeth afterwards.

Hawthorn berries resemble crabapples both on the outside and on the inside. They are similarly sour. It oxidizes quickly like apples, too! The flavor and texture is where they’re different. Hawthorn berries have less moisture and the texture is more crumbly, almost like moist caulk.

I’ve only had a couple of experiences with fresh hawthorn berries as an adult, so I can’t say for sure that my description is the most accurate. Maybe all the ones I’ve had were low quality. I have no idea.

There used to be only a few Asian supermarkets in Silicon Valley, before the proliferations of 99 Ranch, Marina, H Mart, etc. The best was Tian Tian supermarket — sadly, now long defunct due to the stiff competition — in Cupertino and every Friday, my parents shopped for groceries after dropping me off at the evening Chinese school on Lynbrook High’s campus. My reward for attendance was often a pack of haw flakes –candy made of hawthorn puree and sugar that is dried and formed into thin wafer disks. As I sat in the back of our car on the ride home, it was a fun challenge digging out each disk from the package in the dark. The closest thing to those happy memories of hawthorn confections was probably hawthorn leather, which seemed like a popular method when you Google hawthorn recipes. Having never made fruit leather before, I loved how easy it was. It was a lot of fun, and the resulting treat was delightful, bringing back memories! If you’d like to try it out for yourself, here’s what I did:

Ingredients: 
- 1.5 cup of fresh hawthorn berries, stemmed and seeded 
- 2 cup of fruit juice 
- 1/4 cup of sweetener of your choice (in my case Truvia, a mixture of stevia and erythritol) 
 
Directions: 
1. Preheat the oven to 60C (or 140F). 
2. Blend all ingredients until a smooth puree in a high-power blender. 
3. Simmer on the stove on medium heat for 15-20 minutes, until it has a thick, curd-like consistency. 
4. Pour onto a baking sheet and bake for 6-12 hours. The length of time will depend on the consistency of the puree you start with.

All this so far has been GOFC (good ol’ fashioned cooking — ok, no one calls it that, but I was trying to tip my hat to GOFAI — good ol’ fashioned artificial intelligence), so I’ve been going off of recipes invented by humans. That being said, lately, I’ve been obsessed with ChatGPT. I wanted to see what else I could do with hawthorn fruit, so I gave it this prompt:

Give me a recipe using hawthorn fruit that's not a jam, jelly, leather, smoothie, or tea and that doesn't use sugar. It can use other sweeteners though.

Here’s what it generated:

Here's a recipe for hawthorn fruit chutney: 
 
Ingredients: 
 
2 cups hawthorn berries, rinsed and stems removed 
1 onion, finely chopped 
2 cloves garlic, minced 
1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated 
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar 
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup 
1/4 tsp salt 
1/4 tsp cumin powder 
1/4 tsp coriander powder 
1/4 tsp turmeric powder 
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder 
1/8 tsp chili powder 
1 tbsp oil 
Instructions: 
 
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. 
Add the onion and cook until softened, stirring occasionally. 
Add the garlic and ginger and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. 
Add the hawthorn berries, apple cider vinegar, honey or maple syrup, salt, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, cinnamon powder, and chili powder to the saucepan. Stir to combine. 
Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the hawthorn berries have broken down and the chutney has thickened. 
Remove the saucepan from the heat and let the chutney cool to room temperature. 
Transfer the chutney to a jar with a tight-fitting lid and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. 
This hawthorn fruit chutney is a delicious and savory way to enjoy the benefits of this nutritious fruit. Hawthorn berries are known to have a mildly sweet and tart flavor, and they also contain antioxidants and other beneficial nutrients that support heart health and digestive function. The combination of spices in this recipe gives the chutney a flavorful kick, while the honey or maple syrup adds just the right amount of sweetness.

As always I’m skeptical of its concoctions. While yes, this is precisely how chutneys are constructed. Who does this robot think it is to tell me that I can make chutney out of hawthorn fruit? It seems out there. Somehow, I’m always unsettled by its initial response, yet when my mind has a chance to digest it, ChatGPT’s suggestion isn’t crazy.

Hawthorn fruit is not unlike a super tart apple, and apples are perfect for chutneys. Why not Hawthorn? It makes perfect sense, even if it’s not commonly done. We simply cannot compete with a language model that has read and condensed all of humanity’s knowledge. I’ve been able to achieve more than I would’ve without ChatGPT. This robot has some very good ideas and honestly, in the handful of recipes I’ve cooked since collaboratively working with it, it’s already pushed me to be a better cook.

It’s made me more efficient at using up my ingredients, which not only saves me money, but also prevents food waste. It has also given me new flavor experiences that I otherwise wouldn’t have tried and it’s generally given me more diverse dishes, increasing my enjoyment of food for the same ingredients I already had on hand.

If ChatGPT can improve my cooking and life experience in such a profound way, I wonder what else it can do for me? More to come on this later. I’m curious to know what you think. What areas of your life would you like improved? Write in the comments below.

Final Verdict:

One of the better chutneys I’ve ever tasted. Nothing was overpowering and I can’t get over how well the seasoning worked. When I think of a robot generating a recipe, I expect an overly salty dish or something that would be sickeningly sweet. So far, none of those nightmare scenarios have occurred. It’s unbelievable that the recipe somehow was able to account for the acidity of the hawthorn fruit! I’m beginning to think that everything I cook from now on will start with a brainstorming session with ChatGPT…