We are at the lively Sinksenfoor, a large annual fair held in Antwerp, Belgium. Dom tries a snack of grapes skewered on a stick and coated in a hot sugar syrup that hardened into a transparent, brittle glaze upon cooling. This snack is known as tanghulu (糖葫芦), a name that derives from tang (糖), meaning ‘sugar’ and hu lu (葫芦), which means ‘gourd’, referring to the calabash-like shape formed by stacking the round fruits along the skewer. While a typical snack at Belgian fairs, the name, like the snack itself, comes from Northern China, where fruit was dipped into hot syrup and left to harden into a crisp, shiny shell at night markets. Over time, the idea travelled, reaching other regions, including Korea, where the word survives in local pronunciation as tanghuru (탕후루). 回