Fingered citron, also known as nine claws, five-fingered citron or good fortune citron, is the fruit of the small evergreen trees of the Rutaceae family. The fruit itself is also a valuable ingredient for medicine. According to Compendium of Materia Medica, a Chinese herbology volume, fingered citrons can refresh the body, clear phlegm and treat a cough when cooked into a soup with alcohol. Due to its many benefits, the residents tend to keep preserved citron at home, dubbing it the best medicinal fruit.

Preserved fingered citron, nicknamed “fragrant old citron” by the natives, has long been popular and represents the best level of local fruit preserves. Chaozhou is ideal for breeding the fruit thanks to its abundant rainfall and sufficient sunshine typical of the subtropical maritime monsoon climate. According to Guangya, a book written in the Tang Dynasty, Chaozhou people made preserves as early as the Song Dynasty. They had standardized the process by the mid-Ming Dynasty and became skillful in the Qing Dynasty. It takes two to three years of particular procedures to make the proper snack, including fruit selecting and cleaning, salting, cutting and drying, boiling, soaking with traditional Chinese medicine, a second drying, and flavoring and packaging. Among them, soaking and flavoring are the most challenging. Due to its multiple roles for medical treatment and the study of local history and culture, it is necessary to protect the local specialty. Thus, it was selected as a municipal intangible cultural heritage in 2017 and a representative food in the 7th batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage in 2018.