216. Oranges

 

It’s the holiday season and one of the traditional stocking gifts here in the Northwest used to be an orange. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries fresh oranges were hard to come by in this part of the country because of the lack of and expense of refrigerated or iced transport. That made fresh oranges a bit of an exotic gift around here so having a fresh orange from California (Florida is too far away) was a real treat. Oranges are probably my favorite citrus fruit, so getting an orange in my stocking was always fun and I’ve continued that tradition in my family. I had a really hard time finding Blood oranges this year, so when I found some in Rosauers I snatched them up.

I like just about everything orange in flavor. Terry’s chocolate oranges from Britain are a favorite of mine. I love chocolate covered orange sticks. I also love those candy orange slices.  Orange sherbet or orange gelato are my favorite frozen desserts, especially with a bit of chocolate. I love orange candy truffles. The best cranberry sauce for me is fresh cranberries, oranges, and sugar all blended together. This is the season for all of those flavors because oranges are now in season and they can easily be transported from California or Florida or wherever to this part of the country in these times. And I love fresh oranges. I have always taken oranges with me as my lunch time fruit if they were available. Of course, good oranges aren’t always available, so I’m happy to have an apple as well.

There are a variety of oranges that I enjoy. The typical orange that I’ve always thought about is the Navel orange. It’s the one I remember eating as a kid, the one with the nice big sections that make one bite. And then the canned oranges were always Mandarin oranges. In adulthood I have discovered that Mandarins and Clementines (little cuties) are the kind that are easy to peel and you can easily eat two of them without feeling too much guilt about eating too much. Then there are tangerines which are slightly larger than a Mandarin and not such a round shape but also fairly easy to peel. I confess to some ignorance about orange varieties because I’ve heard that tangerines might not actually be oranges and if that’s the case, I can accept that like I can accept that nectarines aren’t peaches (even though they really are peaches without the fuzz). There are now Cara Cara Navel oranges that seem to me to be some cross with a Blood orange or something because they have a reddish tint to their flesh but they are Navel in every other way. I never really knew what Blood oranges were until I went to Italy and now I realize they can be bought (and grown) in the US as well. This lack of orange knowledge—like how I can’t really tell a Navel from a Valencia—comes from what I told you earlier about oranges being somewhat exotic to this part of the country. That also explains a little bit about why I love oranges—they’re exotic, the things of Christmas stockings. But I also always had oranges around me in one form or another. I remember as a kid not really getting overly excited about orange juice, mostly because it was always canned. But then sometime in the seventies they started selling frozen concentrate and I fell in love with it. Again, they’re exotic and not around here and shipping frozen goods wasn’t a big thing yet in the sixties. But now oranges are pretty common. And I love oranges.