Plant and Soil Sciences - The Asia of Amherst

Back to Plant and Soil Sciences facts and figures

The Asia of Amherst

The Boston Globe |

The Asia of Amherst Thin leeks as yellow as buttercups, cascading red berries on 8-foot vines, jade gourds twisted like swans: Some strange fruit has been growing in the Pioneer Valley lately.

Tso-Cheng Chang has been growing authentic Chinese vegetables along the Connecticut River ever since he immigrated from the Shandong region of China 35 years ago. Some of his produce goes to the local farmers’ market, and most of it appears in dishes at Amherst Chinese Food (called “Am Chi” by locals), a restaurant he has owned for 27 years. “We sell a lot of Chinese leeks and ching gan choi [baby bok choy].” Other vegetables, like the giant porous si guo (otherwise known as Chinese loofa sponge), Chang characterizes understatedly as “hard to sell at the restaurant.”

Chang’s farming methods are an arcane blend of East and West. He has used soybean whey (waste from a local tofu producer) as fertilizer, the bark of the Chinese eucommia tree as an insect repellent for eggplant. These days, he mixes bean sprout wastes and hardwood sawdust into an organic compost, but replenishes soil minerals with a rock slurry powder, a more common organic practice.

The farm sits on 50 acres. Giant, pale and sweet bottle gourds lie in rows beside fine-textured green eggplants. Chinese leeks, more delicate than scallions, are covered with earth to keep them soft and meltingly subtle. Greenhouses hold lush, humid beds of Chinese water spinach and red striped amaranth.

In Chang’s back acres, exquisitely astringent bitter melons - traditionally cooked with black beans and pork - lurk beneath a gently rustling sea of broad, heart-shaped leaves. Each is 10 inches long and completely covered with bumps, with rubbery green skin ripening into yellow.

In the same patch are winter melons (they have to be planted at the end of winter). Each is big as a milk crate, glossy, green, and speckled with pale flecks.

Chang’s produce has won awards from local growers’ associations. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where Chang received a Ph.d, looks on his accomplishments with particular pride. Dr. William Bramlage of the school’s plant and soil science department calls Chang “a wonderful example of someone who sees opportunities and makes them realities.” Bramlage attributes Chang’s success to a blend of “knowledge, hard work, and shrewd judgement.”

Chinese vegetable farming is a labor of love. Chang also runs Chang Farm Fresh Bean Sprouts, which are shipped throughout the Northeast, including Boston’s Chinatown.

His son Sidney increasingly handles the bean sprout operation. But Tso-Cheng Chang doesn’t plan to spend the future idly. He hopes to retire on the proceeds of the sandraberry, an exotic fruit whose seeds he brought from China, a towering vine with a riot of glossy green tendrils and glowing crimson fruit harvested and pressed in late August.

Known in China as wu wei zi ("five-taste berry"), the brilliant red juice is rich in Vitamin C and antioxidants and credited with curing everything from hepatitis to failing eyesight. Chang thinks he is the sole cultivator; in China, the berries are foraged from the wild. The 73-year-old Chang, who drinks a glass of sandraberry juice daily, has straight posture, almost wrinkle-free skin, and hardly any gray hair. He sleeps five hours a night.

Sandraberry juice is available only at Chang’s restaurant. Like so much of his produce, it’s delicious, obscure, and not available unless you happen to live in China - or Hampshire County.

For now, it’s just another local secret.

Back to Plant and Soil Sciences facts and figures