Salted and Pickled Mustard Greens

鹹 菜 Salted greens—Hakka: hahm choi; Mandarin: xian cai

酸 菜 Pickled greens—Hakka: soen choi; Mandarin: suan cai

Hakka women gained a reputation as master pickle makers. They would immerse vegetables in a brine or sauce or pack them dry in salt. Doreen Yuen from Hawaii writes that her maternal grandmother, En Fah Kong Yap, rubbed Hawaiian salt into mustard cabbage and then hung the heads of cabbage on a clothesline until dry. The pickles could be ea