It is a tradition for Cantonese to drink soup. They like to add all kinds of tonics and even medicinal materials to the soup. Therefore, people in Guangzhou are also called soup medicated diet. The most common tonics are jujube and medlar. Red dates enrich blood, medlar improves eyesight, and then various seasonings and salt are added to make the soup beautiful and fresh. Because soaking red dates in soup for too long will lead to sour jujube meat, people who hate this taste will change red dates into candied dates, so that the boiled soup not only increases the sweetness of the soup, but also tastes mellow.
Jujube contains a lot of protein and nutrients needed by human body. Adding it into soup has a remarkable nourishing effect on middle-aged and elderly people, children and pregnant women. There are many kinds of soups with candied dates in Guangdong, such as dried pork liver vegetables, peanut bitter gourd watercress, and sashimi soup with candied dates. Take watercress and jujube raw fish soup as an example. The raw materials for making soup are simple, and the process of making soup is not difficult. This soup can be used for adjuvant treatment of dry throat, dry cough due to lung heat, constipation due to intestinal dryness, moistening lung, moistening throat and clearing heat.
In fact, Cantonese people like to add candied dates to soup, not only to replace red dates, but also because candied dates are very common ingredients in soup, which can increase the taste of soup and make it sweeter.