THOSE who have only eaten water chestnuts out of a can generally recoil in disbelief at first encounter with a fresh one. In this pleasant case, expectations fall far short of reality.
Fresh water chestnuts are remarkably, refreshingly, endearingly sweet, vaguely reminiscent of fresh, tender sweet corn. Tasting is believing.
Water chestnuts, or ma tai as they are known in Cantonese, are an ancient Chinese crop, believed to have been cultivated now for some 3,000 years.
People here enjoy them as much as their ancestors, so water chestnuts are common and virtually perennial in markets in Hong Kong as well as in China.
Three characteristics may surprise the Western consumer. First, canning virtually destroys their flavour. Second, cooking improves their texture. When eaten raw, tasteless fibre remains in the mouth after the sweetness disperses; cooking renders the whole nut uniformly edible.
Finally, the Cantonese think of this first as a medicinal tonic, only secondarily as a vegetable.
Chinese doctors describe water chestnuts as having ''cold'' energy and sweet flavour - an unusually palatable cure for over-heated conditions (typically caused by eating too many ''heating snacks'' such as potato chips, candy bars, and mooncakes).