When I was growing up in landlocked Kansas, the only time I saw lychee "nuts" was the canned variety, rarely at home or in a Chinese restaurant. By that time, their prickly reddish rind had been peeled off and the small seed removed leaving only the white fleshy fruit in the canning syrup. I had no idea why anyone would call them "nuts" or what they looked or tasted like when fresh.
When I was in China, I saw fresh lychees for sale in the Guilin area . . . on the baskets of street vendors on bicycles, on carts, in markets. It was a treat to peel them and eat them fresh. I still found it odd that they are called nuts and not fruit, since we can't eat the slightly poisonous nut. After all, we don't eat peach pits but we don't call peaches "peach nuts."
I had a similar experience in Japan. I grew up only knowing mandarin oranges as the canned product, but in Japan, I went "mikagari," or mandarin orange picking. How wonderful, fragrant and tasty the fresh ones were!
