To All,
(Since the Internet experts advise one to scrub one's face before applying an orange peel mask, this led me to two questions.
Jaffa Orange
At Whole Foods on 26 Feb 2015 I found yet another orange. The display called it a small navel, the PLU sticker called it an heirloom navel, and the cash register receipt called it a Jaffa orange. The last name appears to be the industry standard, so I will go with Jaffa orange, though "shamouti" is often used. The two oranges I bought together weighed 0.57 pounds, so at $2.49/pound, the total cost for both of them was $1.42; the average orange weighed 0.29 pounds and cost 71 cents..
(Something funny is going on with the PLU sticker for this fruit (first picture below). First, the PLU code is 4390, which the PLU site says is an unassigned code (for this concept see the e-mail on the pixie tangerine of 28 Feb 2015). Second, the PLU sticker is not a generic sticker like the one that we saw for the pixie tangerine (second picture below); the sticker is an elaborate one that pretty clearly is not an invention of Whole Foods. The PLU police need to look into this.)
The most noticeable visual trait of Jaffa oranges is that they are small. In fact, they are so small that I got two. This made me realize that I had always thought that navel oranges were large since all the navel oranges I had ever seen were large. But here is a small one. Moreover, it originated in 1844 as a mutation near Jaffa in what was then Palestine and is now Israel. Since the first navel orange appeared in the first two decades of the 19th century, the Jaffa orange is pretty close to the basal navel orange. Maybe the original navel was small, and the large size of the navel oranges we now usually see is due to the efforts of man. Recall that fruits tend to get bigger as they associate with man; think blueberries and strawberries. I have been unable to find anything on the size of the original navel orange, so this will be left as an open question.
I peeled the oranges and ate a quarter of it at each bite. The most noticeable gustatory trait of this orange is that it is piercingly sweet with no suggestion of tangyness. Since I like sweet, I really liked these oranges. These oranges were remarkably juicy. After eating two of them, my cutting board was covered with juice, my hands were covered with juice, and I had to reach for a napkin to wipe the juice off my mouth to keep from dripping on the floor. There were no seeds, so they were easy to eat.
The verdict: If you like'em sweet, juicy, and small, then these oranges are made for you. If you think of them as $2.49/pound, they are pretty expensive, but they are more reasonable if you think of them as 71 cents for a serving..
The Jaffa orange is responsible for giving the nickname of the Big Orange to Tel Aviv.
Small Navel Orange
Shortly after writing the paragraph above about never having seen a small navel orange, on 2 Mar 2015 I stumbled upon a display of small navel oranges at Stop&Shop. I probably have been seeing them for decades, but my unseeing eye failed to register them. I got a four pound bag for $3.99. When I measured the weight of the oranges, they weighed 4.156 pounds, so I paid $0.96/pound. There were 11 oranges in this bag, so the average orange weighed 0.38 pounds and cost 36 cents. Per unit of citrus, the Jaffa navel orange cost about two and a half times as much as a small navel orange.
Even though these oranges were in a bag, six of them sported a PLU sticker. The PLU code for a small navel orange is 4013, whereas the code for a large navel orange is 4012.
The taste of the small navel orange can be compared to that of the Jaffa orange. Both oranges are similar is that they are sweet with no hint of tangyness. The difference is that the small navel orange's sweetness is low impact and soothing while that of the Jaffa orange is sharp and attention-getting.
The verdict: If you want a cheap, low key, smooth, sweet citrus taste presented in a small package, then a small navel orange will meet your needs.
Later note: On 31 Mar 2015 I found a small navel orange at Whole Foods that was not labeled. Its PLU sticker said it was a navel and that its code was 3107; the code did not add anything since the PLU site just called this a navel orange. This orange had an extraordinarily thin peel, which made it time-consuming to peel. It weighed 0.48 pounds and cost a flat 80 cents, so it cost $1.67/pound. It tasted like the small navel orange reported on above. Who knows what this orange is? One must expect unidentified, oddball citrus fruits like thls to pop up in the store.
Some Kind of a Tangelo
Wegmans on 12 Feb 2015 sold me a mystery tangelo (PLU #4456). The sign on the display and the cash register receipt called in a "honeybell tangelo," a term that, because of shape, is more properly applied to the Minneola tangelo (see e-mail of 28 Feb 2015). The sticker on the orange called it a "Florida tangelo." The PLU site says that #4456 indicates a "tangelo." I tend to put more trust in the PLU site, so I will just call it a tangelo. The cost was a flat $0.99 per tangelo. Since mine weighted 7.7 ounces, its cost was $2.08/pound.
This is a medium-sized orange. I had to peel it with my thumbs using the spiral method. Though the peel came off fairly easily, it took 65 seconds to peel it. One evaluates orange taste on the mix of sweetness and tangyness. This orange was remarkable in that it had neither; its taste was totally neutral, i.e., it had no taste at all. There were no seeds. (I was so eager to eat this orange that I forgot to take a picture of the unpeeled orange. It had a typical orange shape and color, and it did not have any remarkable features, e.g., no knob on top.)
The verdict: Eating this orange is a waste of time. Since it is on the expensive side, it deserves to be shunned. The only doubt is that it is hard to be sure what one is buying. Obfuscation in the aisles can lead one to inadvertently purchase this turkey. (Keep in mind the universal disclaimer that my reports are subject to a small sample problem. There is variation in all fruits, and I might have happened to have gotten a bad one. One should not place too much weight on a conclusion drawn from a sample of one.)
Temple Orange
Market Basket surprised me on 12 Feb 2015 with a temple orange (PLU #4387). While I had been hearing of this orange for decades, I had never had one, so I seized the opportunity. My orange weighed 0.35 pounds, so at $0.89/pound, it cost $0.32. If you classify oranges as large, medium, small, and really small, this one was small. This orange is also called a tangor since it's a cross between a tangerine and an orange.
Peeling this orange requires you to work your thumb around the orange under the peel; it is this type of peeling strategy that generates a peel star. This is a laborious peeling method, and it took me 70 seconds to peel it.
The taste was a watery sweetness with no hint of tangyness. In short, this tasted more like an orange soda than an orange.. Moreover, it had seeds, so you had to eat it carefully and could not chomp down to get a blast of juice.
The verdict: This orange is cheap, but its blah taste does not recommend it, and its appeal continues to flag as you realize that it is seed-ridden and hard to peel. In short, this is not the orange of choice unless one's only criterion is price.
My Childhood Tangerine
When I was a kid in the 1950s, there were only three orange-like products available in our local grocery store; standard orange, navel orange, and tangerine. I have in the last few months eaten a number of different tangerines, clementines, mandarins, and satsumas, but none of them were the same as my childhood tangerine. I had started to think that this tangerine had been made obsolete and was no longer produced and sold. Then, on 5 Mar 2015, I found a fruit that was visually identical to my childhood tangerine in a display at Whole Foods vaguely labeled "Clementines Loose." It had the same bright orange peel, the same size, the same somewhat flattened shape, and the same slightly bumpy peel as my childhood tangerine. The cash register receipt, reflecting the usual terminological confusion, called it a tangerine clementine. There was no PLU sticker to clear up (or contribute to) the confusion. I will just call it a tangerine. My tangerine weighed 0.23 pounds, and at $1.99/pound, it cost 46 cents.
It was easy to peel this tangerine. I broke the segments into four pieces for efficient eating. It was seedless. The taste was a very nice blend of the sweet and the tangy. This is just how I remember it from childhood (except that I think that my childhood tangerine had seeds).
The verdict: Perhaps it is just a case of overvaluing childhood memories, but I thought that this fruit provided the perfect balance of the various citrus flavors. Moreover, it was easy to peel and seedless, so I give this fruit a very high rating. The problem is that it is not well identified,and it is hard to know exactly what I ate and how to buy it again. This is a case where the confusion in citrus nomenclature seriously impedes good eating.
Mike showed me a box of clementines that he had bought, and they looked like my childhood tangerine. Perhaps the March clementines correspond to my childhood tangerines. Certainly, the December clementines are different. When I get to be dictator, I will clear up this impossible-to-interpret citrus nomenclature.
Later note: On 8 Mar 2015 I went back to Whole Foods to get more of these tangerines and noticed a tiny 4450 at the bottom of the sign on the display. (It's too small to read in the picture above of the display. It is at the very bottom of the sign under the second "o" in "loose.") Thinking that this might be a PLU number, I looked it up and found that it said that the commodity was Tangerines/Mandarins and the variety was Clementines. This means that for this one fruit we have seen the following terms applied by Whole Foods and the PLU site.
- Clementine
- Tangerine Clementine
- Tangerine/Mandarin
As for my claim that citrus nomenclature is confused to the max, I rest my case.
Gold Nugget Mandarin
Whole Foods, ever giving, provided me on 5 Mar 2015 with a new citrus fruit called a gold nugget mandarin. This fruit's visual signature is that it is covered with prominent bumps; see the picture below from the Internet. Mine weighed 0.58 pounds, so at $1.99/pound (on sale!), it set me back $1.15.
We have the usual terminological confusion. The sign at the Whole Foods display called this a Gold Nugget Tangerine. The cash register receipt called it a Citrus Mandarin GN. Unfortunately, there was no PLU sticker. In calling this a gold nugget mandarin, I follow the University of California Riverside, which developed this variety over a period of several decades starting in the 1950s by crossing two mandarin varieties.
Now to eat this prehistoric-looking fruit. It peeled easily and made a handsome, peeled fruit sitting on my cutting board. It easily separated into firm segments. There were no seeds. The taste was a pure sweetness with no tangyness. It was a smooth sweetness rather than the piercing sweetness of the Jaffa orange. To me the taste was almost identical to that of the small navel orange reported on above.The experts at the University of California at Riverside assert, "The taste is extremely sweet when mature ... with a very rich flavor, considered by professional taste panels to be one of the very best flavored citrus in the world." I think this evaluation reflects pride of authorship. Or maybe they ate one just off the tree.
The verdict is that this is another pleasant citrus fruit. The taste is good but not remarkable. If you can find it at a good price, it is worth trying. This fruit can slide right into the Weird Looking Fruit Hall of Fame next to the rambutan, dragon fruit, and horned melon.
Later note: On a trip to Whole Foods a couple of days later I noticed that the display sign had a little number, much as described above for the tangerine, that indicates that the PLU code for the gold nugget might be 3386. The PLU site says that the commodity is Tangerines/Mandarins and the variety is Clementines. Again, nomenclatural confusion reigns supreme.
Still later note: On 30 Mar 2015 I found another display labeled Gold Nugget Tangerines. These gold nuggets looked quite different from those of early March since the bumpy, pebbled look of the skin was much less prominent, and they were much smaller. I bought a typical one, and it weighed 0.25 pounds. At $2.49/pound, it cost 62 cents. The taste was the same. This time the cash register receipt called it a Tangerine Clementine and the fruit had a generic PLU sticker with code 3386. Good luck keeping clear on what you are eating.
Closing Thought
I grow weary of the superfluous variety of barely distinguishable citrus fruits. It fills one with ennui.
Party Tip
Your party tip is to take a hint from last week's e-mail and introduce your guests to do-it-yourself cosmetics by allowing them to make and experience an orange peel beauty mask that is free of the chemicals used to extend the shelf life of the commercial product. In the weeks prior to your party, save your orange peels. At your party, give each guest a choice of peels from different types of oranges and a choice of recipes; you can google "Orange peel beauty mask" to find a plethora of competing recipes. Each guest can choose a recipe, grind up the peels to make a powder, and add milk, yogurt, honey, baking soda, lentils, coconut oil, or whatever the recipe calls for to make a paste. Your guests then pair off to apply the paste to each other's faces. For each guest, for variety the left half of the face is coated with the paste made by that guest, and the right half is coated by the paste made by that guest's partner. Men are not exempted. Men have faces, too, and men should learn what it's like to be pampered. Prior to the party, you might hint that men cut off their beards. Also prior to the party, request that your guests scrub their faces. After the masks are applied, they should stay in place for half an hour. To avoid disrupting the masks, guests should not laugh during this interval. To guard against laughter, you can fill this time with a lecture on citrus taxonomy. Allow your guests to wash off their masks and then gaze into a mirror and feel pleased at the increment of beauty. Since each guest tried two different masks, the different orange peels and recipes can be compared. Take a before-and-after picture of each guest and e-mail these pictures to your guests so that they will have a permanent record of the rejuvenating effects of an orange peel mask.
- What is a scrub? This question is answered by Menscience Magazine, which says that a "... scrub has small particles and other ingredients to help physically exfoliate the top layer of dead cells from the skin."
- What is the difference between washing and scrubbing? The Her Campus site states that washing removes dirt while scrubbing removes a layer of skin.
