[Note: Previously, when I wanted to include a link in an e-mail, I inserted the URL, e.g.,
https://www.google.com/search?q=apricot+beauty+products+images&biw=1366&bih=643&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=CAvEVObvJsi5ggSBxoDoCA&ved=0CCgQsAQ, which is an ugly way to do it. I have now learned how to indicate the link with a phrase of my choosing. Therefore, you will not see any more URLs. You will know when you are seeing a link since it will be underlined and in color, e.g.,
example of a link. On my computer the link is in blue, but I can't say for sure what the color will be on your viewing device. In short, be aware of this new way in which I will be communicating links to you. If you find this new method to be inferior for some reason, please let me know.]
To All,
This e-mail covers three types of tangerines.
Satsuma Tangerine
While trying to slink unobserved through Whole Foods, I saw a display labeled the Satsuma Mandarin. (The cash register receipt used the term Satsuma tangerine, so I will use this more familiar term. Both terms are recognized.) These are cute little mini-tangerines. Each had a festive green leaf attached that made it look jaunty. I picked one up. It weighed 0.22 pound, so at $2.99/pound, it set me back $0.66. Here are pictures from the Internet, including a picture that shows a comparative view of six tangerine-like species.
Below you see the picture of the Satsuma tangerine unpeeled on my cutting board, peeled but whole, and peeled and partly broken up into wedges. It peeled easily like a tangerine and had no seeds. The taste compared to a standard tangerine was sweeter and not as tart. It is said that
children often prefer satsumas over other tangerines because of their mild flavor.
The verdict: While the Satsuma tangerine is a little bit expensive, it has a nice taste and might hit the spot if you just want a taste of fruit or if you are a child.
The plant is a squat shrub that produces attractive but unspectacular flowers.
According to
Wikipedia, as well as other
sources, the satsuma tangerine can survive temperatures down to 15 degrees F. for a few hours. Among citrus fruits, only the kumquat is more cold hardy. If you elect to grow a satsuma tangerine shrub from seed, it will take eight years to get fruit. Jose and Josh report that they had a satsuma tangerine bonsai until their cat killed it.
I will include a few pictures of satsuma tangerine products from the three standard categories: alcoholic beverages, beauty products, and jam. (Does anyone know what body polish is? I assume this is for a human and not a car.)
Artists have apparently devoted relatively little effort to the satsuma.
As for the origin of this fruit, in footnote 6 of the
Wikipedia article we find the following translation of an article written in Japanese:
After the many years of research, Dr. Tanaka has concluded the place of origin of Satsuma is Nagashima, Kagoshima. Satsuma is a chance seedling of Sōkitsu, Mankitsu, or Tendaisankitsu introduced from Huangyan Zhejiang, China. It appeared in the early Edo period.
(The
Edo period lasted from 1603 to 1868. Other
sources indicate that this fruit originated prior to 1600.) In short, this fruit originated as a chance hybrid in which there was apparently no human intervention, except to nurture the plant after it came into existence. This is not the first fruit that we have encountered that originated as a chance hybrid. Another example is the uniq from the first Fruit Explorer e-mail (17 Jan 2014).
Prior to World War II, these fruits were known as satsumas in the U.S. When their import from Japan restarted shortly after World War II ended, however, the residual wartime feelings led to their being renamed "mandarins" to disguise their Japanese origin. With the passage of time, however, the term satsuma has again become acceptable, resulting in naming confusion.
Adding to the confusion over exactly what one is eating is that the Satsuma tangerine is part of a highly
unstable swarm of varieties. This theme of confusion is touched on again later in this e-mail since it is omnipresent when trying to figure out what kind of a tangerine one is eating.
Murcott Tangerine
Among the piles of whole Foods produce, it took a keen eye to spot the Murcott tangerine (PLU #3430) since it's only a little bigger than a walnut. Whole Foods charged $2.40/pound, so at 0.12 pounds mine set me back $0.30. Curiosity: The sticker with the PLU code differs from all the other stickers I've seen; it is a generic sticker that only says "Produce" and has the PLU number. It looks amateurish. When you look #3430 up at the PLU web site, it says of this number, "Restricted from ANY use in Canada or the U.S." (Emphasis in original.) Is Whole Foods going rogue by using this number? The Fruit Police should look into this. Here is a picture of this sticker. I am not including pictures of this fruit from the Internet since, because it is something of a mystery fruit (see below), the Internet is not to be trusted.
[Note: The Price Look-Up (PLU) code is the four or sometimes five digit number on the little sticker that is often affixed to a fruit or a vegetable. This number identifies a fruit so that the cashier will know what to charge. For example, if you are buying a red apple, is it a gala, delicious, Cortland, braeburn, or Fuji? How's a poor cashier to know? The solution to this problem is that the PLU code identifies the item. For more detail, see my e-mail of 9 Dec 2014 ]
Like the Satsuma tangerine, the Murcott is sold with a stem and green leaf attached. You can rip this off if you don't like to pay for stems and leaves.
To allow you to compare the Murcott and the honey tangerine, which is covered below, some the following pictures show both. When both are shown, the honey tangerine is on the left and the Murcott on the right.
- The two unpeeled tangerines on my cutting board with a Parker T-ball jotter for scale.
- The two peeled tangerines.
- The Murcott segments with a silver dollar for scale. (This is one of the traditional, full-sized silver dollars; it's an inch and a half in diameter. I picked it up in Vegas in 1977, when silver dollars were in daily use there.)
- The peel stars.
- The peel star of just the Murcott.
The Murcott peeled easily. It was striking that the segments were so tiny. Each one, at 1 3/8 inch long, was about the size of a grasshopper. They are tiny compared even to my pinky. The taste was undistinguished. There were no seeds.
The verdict: There is really nothing to recommend this tangerine. It's little more than a curiosity because of its small size. Those tiny segments are more trouble than they're worth.
Not much can be said about the origin of the Murcott. According to a produce
seller:
The Murcott tangerine is the hybrid result from a citrus breeding program within The United States Department of Agriculture. The documentation of its exact parentage is limited.
In short, the Murcott is something of a mystery fruit. You can think of it as an off-brand tangerine that issued from the laboratory of some mad scientist who did not document his efforts. Descriptions of this fruit on seemingly authoritative sites, such as the one linked to in the previous paragraph, differ significantly from what I observed, e.g., in the number of seeds and the ease of peeling, Therefore, I am not going to devote much space on this dodgy and unappealing fruit.
Honey Tangerine
Whole Foods coughed up yet another tangerine, called the honey tangerine (PLU #4453). It is the size of a standard tangerine but its skin is tight and smooth rather than wrinkled and loose like that of the standard tangerine. Whole Foods charged a flat one dollar per honey tangerine. Since mine weighed 7.25 ounces, it cost $2.21/pound. Again, I eschew pictures from the Internet for this ill--defined fruit. As an indication of the out-of-control way that these fruits are referred to, here is a picture that throws in most of the possibly relevant names: Mandarin, honey, and Murcott. You can't tell what you are getting.
Compared to the other two tangerines reported on here, it was harder to peel the honey tangerine, though still possible with the bare hands. The segments were heftier at a length of 2 inches. Here are pictures of just the honey tangerine.
- The unpeeled honey tangerine.
- The peeled segments.
- The peel star.
- A segment compared to my pinky.
The taste was, like that of the Murcott, undistinguished, but the honey tangerine tasted somewhat better since its bigger segments made it juicier. The one to three seeds in each segment was a minor irritation.
The verdict: Again, there is nothing to recommend this tangerine. It doesn't even have curiosity value; it only has the annoyance value of being hard to peel. Life is too short to spend on these no-count fruits.
A Final Thought on Tangerine Varieties
Having fought my way through this plethora of expensive, low-grade tangerines, my conclusion, especially with respect to the last two varieties, is that plant breeders should not foist off their failed creative efforts on us. They should wait until they have something good.
To judge the cost of these fruits, which ranged from $2.21 to $2.99 per pound, we can compare them to large navel oranges that I bought today from Trader Joe's. To me these navel oranges are the epitome of good fruit. I weighed three of these oranges, and the average weight was 10.4 ounces.Trader Joe's was charging a flat 89 cents per orange (I have seen it as low as 69 cents). This means that the cost per pound of these oranges was $1.37. Do you want to pay perhaps a dollar more per per pound for an inferior fruit? (One can complain that I am comparing Trader Joe's prices to Whole Foods prices. The comparable Whole Foods navel orange costs $1.25; assuming the same weight, the cost per pound for Whole Foods navel oranges is $1.92.)
Party Tip
Your party tip is to make the centerpiece of your party a mini-fruit festival. The rationale for a mini-fruit festival is the inescapable fact that a drawback to fruit taste-testing as a party activity is that a guest can only eat so much fruit. The standard way around this drawback is, if you want your guests to eat several different types of fruit, to serve pieces of fruit. While this approach is not to be sneezed at, its drawback is that your guests do not experience the whole fruit; they only experience pre-prepared fragments of fruit. The solution proposed here is to serve whole but very small fruits so that they will be able to eat several. Your guests will then get the satisfaction of peeling the fruit themselves and seeing how the meat emerges from the entire fruit. They will experience the fragrance of the torn peel and appreciate the positioning of the seeds.Candidate fruits for your mini-fruit spread include the Satsuma and Murcott tangerines, feijoa, rambutan, lychee nuts, longan, chestnuts, kiwi, and kumquats. You can pick up whatever mini-fruits are in season, and you can rest assured that your guests will have a whole-fruit experience that will stick with them and inform their future fruit eating. When issuing the invitations to your mini-fruit festival, be sure to invite your friends who have had their stomachs stapled. This is the rare feast where they will fit right in.
The Fruit Explorer
P.S. Those of you who scan the list of addressees on these e-mails will note that Steve Agresta has been removed. Steve and I met on 10 Sep 1970 when we were beginning graduate students. We quickly became close friends and remained so for more than 44 years. On Dec 15, Steve went to the emergency room with shortness of breath. He died less than three weeks later. He had contracted pulmonary arterial sarcoma, a rare and very aggressive cancer for which there is no known treatment. This leaves a big hole in my life. I have added his step-daughter, to whom he forwarded these e-mails, to the mailing list. Steve was five months younger than me.
