Ugli Fruit (Tangelo)
APPEARANCE 
Extremely large, bumpy, green and yellow fruit with a knobby end and a squatty shape; warm, yellowish orange flesh.
AROMA
Soft tangerine fragrance; not acidic at all; slighty reminiscent of soap but not in a bad way.
TEXTURE
Very thick pith, but easy zipper peel once you can get the first bit off. Once you get to the flesh, the skin of each segment is a little thick, but the the inside is lusciously soft and juicy. Very few seeds!
TASTE
The first word that comes to mind is “soft”. It is a mellow, smooth tangerine style flavor with very little acidity. In a way, it reminds me of perfect and flavorful green grapes.
OVERALL
This is definitely the ugly duckling of the citrus world. Its soft, smooth texture is amazing and I want to suck the juice out of the segments bit by bit. The texture of the skin on the segments is unfortunate because honestly this might be my favorite snacking citrus ever. It is so extremely easy to eat. I just want to slurp, slurp, slurp it up.
NOTES
This fruit is also marketed as Uniq Fruit. Yeah – and it has a nice personality too. Sure. Good try marketers.
Two-quat-tini
If you tend to use phrases like “liquid lunch” or “sandwich in a glass” to justify your binge drinking, then this is the post for you!
You might think that here at Chez Fruit Maven (oh yes – I will lamely use the word “chez” if I want to) it’s all about healthy living and eating. Surely I am eating fruit for all my snacks and juicing my breakfast and making fruit parfaits for the occasional, well deserved dessert. Of course I am — every year until about noon on January 1st. Later, at approximately 12:01pm I go back to my lazy, day spa loving self and order a fancy martini from poolside while mocking the girls with the fake tans and melon boobs. (Ok, so this might not be my exact life but believe me it is really, really close.)
What is my point here? I am starting a cocktail column! Every so often, when a particular fruit strikes my fancy, I’ll be posting a recipe of my latest amusement. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. And please, let me know if you try them or if you make up some of your own. Here we go (yeah, I’m hoping to get better at naming them):
Two-quat-tini
- 1 limequat
- 1 mandarinquat
- 2 teaspoons powdered sugar
- a pinch of cayenne (use a light touch here or you will seriously mess this up)
- 2 ounces light rum
- 2 ounces club soda
- crushed ice
- Slice the limequat and mandarinquat in half or quarters and place in the bottom of a cocktail shaker
- Add the powdered sugar and the pinch of cayenne
- Muddle! Muddle! Muddle!
- Strain into an appropriate glass (I have no idea what is appropriate)
- Add crushed ice, light rum and club soda
- Garnish with a twist of peel (or stop trying to impress everyone and just drink it)
Bartlett Pear
APPEARANCE
Nice yellow and red skin, gets lots of bruises though so be gentle.
AROMA
Full and fragrant, sultry pear.
TEXTURE
Perfectly firm but giving; slightly grainy, like most pears.
TASTE
The quintessential pear – nothing detracting but nothing I would go on about either. At least it doesn’t have the papery skin or a bitter aftertaste.
OVERALL
This is a prissy person’s pear. It tastes very good but doesn’t drip juice all over you (though there is plenty of juice, don’t get me wrong). It discolors easily so there is value in taking great care when transporting it or it will look like the morning consequences of a late night brawl. Also it is normal enough that assuming you haven’t bruised the hell out of it, no attention will be drawn when you slice and eat it with a fork and knife. It’s everything someone uptight needs in an afternoon snack.
FRUIT
Pear
VARIETY
Bartlett
PEAK
Fall-Winter
GROWN
Unknown
PURCHASED
Grocery Store
NOTES
I was about to dismiss this pear as forgettably normal, when I came across this article. Apparently the Bartlett is the same as the Williams Pear, which is the very pear that is used for Williams Pear Schnapps, aka “au de vie of poire williams”. (Don’t I just sound so much more impressive when I say it in French? Yes, I am also currently wearing a tiara.) So of course this immediately caught my cocktail loving attention. Unfortunately, every site I found explaining how to make pear liquor of one kind or another requires crazy things like meat grinders and hammers, growing pears inside a glass bottle, or having access to something called “acid blend“. Fun? Yes. Gonna happen? No. Let me know if you give it a whirl. In the meantime I will be checking out all the pear cocktails on this dedicated pear cocktail blog. And you thought a site about fruit was a narrow niche. Au contraire.
RECIPES
Butternut Squash and Bartlett Pear Soup
Bartlett Pear Muffins (this is an entire site dedicated to pears!)
Page Tangerine (Mandarin)
APPEARANCE
Standard tangerine looks – orange skin, orange flesh, no seeds.
AROMA
Strong, lovely and sweet tangerine.
TEXTURE
Amazingly soft, running all over my shirt dripping with juice.
TASTE
Perfectly acidic, slightly flowery, strong, sweet and complicated flavor.
OVERALL
Extremely delicious. What can I say? This, THIS, is a tangerine. This is the kind of fruit that should make the standard orange hide in shame. Don’t get me wrong, I like oranges. But WOW! This is the kind of fruit you secretly make out with. It’s what perfect lips should be. This is sexy fruit.
FRUIT
Mandarin
VARIETY
Page
PEAK
Winter
GROWN
California
PURCHASED
Farmer’s Market
NOTES
So once again the world of citrus vexes me. This particular tangerine was released (whatever that means-as if fruit is released from prison or into the wild or something) as an orange but technically speaking the variety is a tangelo hybrid since it is three-fourths mandarin and one-fourth grapefruit. Can you believe it? A TANGELO HYBRID! I think I’m going to have to start a citrus poser page.
Manzano Banana
APPEARANCE
Totally cute, small, yellow banana with pale, off-white flesh.
AROMA
Strong, flowery, banana fragrance with a little bit of something bright, maybe pineapple.
TEXTURE
Soft with a cool feel. Dry!
TASTE
Yummy combination of banana and pineapple and maybe a bit of strawberry.
OVERALL
This is a diva of a banana if ever I saw one. You have to wait to eat it until the skin is black (not just a little black: BLACK) otherwise it is just “blah” with a tannic aftertaste. But, if you wait (and I mean WAIT – like three weeks well past what you think is a reasonable wait for a banana) then you will be rewarded with a tropical disco in your mouth — smooth, creamy, pineapply, strawberry, banana love. Oh and then the taste will linger and linger until eventually you think, “What is that weird flavor in my mouth? Oh – Is it STILL that banana? Good lord!” (This banana made me wait so long to eat it that I am overwhelmed with the use of ALLCAPS).
FRUIT
Banana
VARIETY
Manzano
PEAK
All Year
GROWN
Colombia
PURCHASED
Grocery Store
NOTES
Some think the banana is good for fertility (hmm), while others are so convinced that the banana is bad luck that they won’t even let their comrades wear fruit of the loom undies. These seem like a tragic confluence of the two.
-
Contact: Fruitmaven {at} gmail.com