You really can not imagine how torn I was over what to do with poor Pluto. I grew up with Pluto as a planet and I just couldn’t leave it out. But I couldn’t deny the fact that it has been relegated to the commoner life of a lowly dwarf planet. So in an effort to acknowledge this disconcerting fact, Pluto is present but just as a blueberry. Sad, sad times.

*I would also like credit for the great restraint required to not make any Uranus jokes.

The Cast:

Mercury: Nagami Kumquat
Venus: Meyer Lemon
Earth: Moro Blood Orange
Mars: Bearrs Lime
Jupiter: Pummelo
Saturn: Melogold Grapefruit
Uranus: Star Ruby Grapefruit
Neptune: Navel Orange
Pluto: Blueberry

The collection spans over 22 acres and has over 1100 varieties of citrus with at least 4 trees of each type. Let us pause and just take that in for a moment.

1100+ varieties of citrus.

Blink. Blink.

My lips are tingling just thinking about it. I remember a few years ago when I started documenting the fruit I eat. If you had asked me then to guess how many types of citrus there are in the world, I probably would have guessed somewhere around 100 and that would have been me trying to impress you with my vast knowledge.

The day was filled with various speakers along with tours through the orchard focusing on some of the more unique items in the collection. There were many types of mandarins that I hadn’t seen or heard of before, but I wasn’t particularly surprised by this. There was really only one piece of fruit that completely wowed me: the Bael Fruit. It has an extremely hard shell that we had to step on in order to break open. The inside was tragically gelatinous with a robust mango smell. Against my better judgement, I licked my fingers. I would say it mostly tasted like nothing but I didn’t get to really take it in before someone shouted, “I think that’s poisonous.” Um…well ok then. (Turns out it is not at all poisonous and is used for medicinal purposes in Asia on a regular basis but I didn’t actually know that until about 10 minutes ago.) So that was a fun experience.

I also got to see another fingerlime. I was hoping to see some of the more vibrantly colored varieties but they were mostly green. This one did have a hint of pink, which was a great surprise.

One way they distilled down the large number of fruit to try was an exhibit delightfully entitled, “Meet the Parents”. Various mandarins and grapefruits were set out on a table for tasting. Then there were lines indicating crosses and the new citrus it produced.  I probably tried around 20 new types of mandarin that I hadn’t had before, which I shoved in to my mouth in about 10 minutes as I didn’t realize the table would be out all day. My instincts to acquire and consume new fruit just took over.  I’m glad you weren’t there to see it. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. Let’s just say one lesson of the day is that I should never have access to poisonous fruit. My policy appears to be “eat first, think later.”

So it was a great day and I have been thinking ever since I left about why exactly I couldn’t stop talking about it. I think I called four different people on my way home to yammer on about all the fun things I saw and people I met. I remember one particular friend laughing adoringly and saying, “So you would say you had a good time then?”

Yes. I had a good time. And among everything I already listed, I think ultimately the reason I enjoyed it so much comes down to the same reason I write Fruit Maven at all: It made my world simultaneously bigger and smaller. It expanded what I believed to be true about this world – the infinite uniqueness and beauty of it all. The orange on my counter that I have eaten so many times on so many days in my life is no longer just an orange. It is now the entrance point to a world of over 1100 different flavors and colors and textures.  That orange is also something so simple, so organic and basic and sustaining. I don’t mean to get overly mushy, but I was standing in the middle of this long row of trees, looking at a huge group of bright yellow citrus laying on the ground and thinking, “This is it. This is real life. THIS is being alive.”

I tried a cookie, a truffle, another scone and some white chocolate bergamot bark — all largely ho-hum. I’m pretty sure I overcomplicated things with wanting to incorporate the bergamot with Earl Grey tea somehow. It just made sense to me that since bergamot oil provides one of the fundamental flavors, then of course the fruit itself would blend together beautifully. And they do!

But I’m not actually a lover of black tea so everything I tried just tasted too “tea-ish” to me. Oddly enough it wasn’t until I stopped trying so hard that I thought of doing a riff off an Arnold Palmer (traditionally black tea + lemonade). I assumed I wouldn’t like it much since every one I’ve had in the past was too sweet and cloying, but perhaps I could add something to spruce it up or tone it down.

To my great astonishment these three simple ingredients were phenomenal. The extravagantly aromatic sour orange is gorgeously balanced by the slightly sweet, musky tea. Looks like Arnold may have been on to something after all. I admit this isn’t exactly a novel recipe, but I am so smitten with it, that I just had to share.

I started with a Rosemary Lemonade recipe from The Herbfarm Cookbook
to get a starting point for the sweet/sour balance and built from there. The result is only slightly sweet and has a nice mellow pucker. This recipe makes a full pitcher.

Anyhow, last Thursday when I visited the citrus collection at UC Riverside, it was 85 degrees. It was a gorgeous day and full of delights, but it was hot. Really hot. Stupidly, I left a half eaten banana in my car during the day and was then aromatically punished for this laziness the entire drive home. I wish I could say I learned my lesson, but I’m sure I didn’t.

I have so much to tell you about the visit and I really do want to do it justice, but on a personal level I have had a very difficult week and I am having trouble bringing the words in to focus. So for now, I will pause and leave you with this mystery. The picture above is the one citrus I saw that day that I had never seen nor even heard of prior. Anyone know what it is?

Here are some clues:

• The outside is hard. REALLY hard. I had to literally stomp on it to break it open. Then we used a knife to pry it apart.
• The inside is extraordinarily sticky. Almost as sticky as the jack fruit latex, though it has a more gelatinous texture.

Any guesses? I’ll put the answer in the comments later this week.

By the way, I am heading to UC Riverside next week for a tour of their citrus collection. I have a good number of questions for them about citrus varieties and how things are classified. I am still a little baffled by whether an orange is a type of mandarin or if a mandarin is a type of orange–among other things. And of course, I’m hoping to get my hands on a few unusual goodies. Let me know in the comments (or email me) if there is anything you would love to know about the citrus world. I think I’m going to have access to some experts, so now is the time.

Bergamot Orange

APPEARANCE 3.5 out of 5 stars

Bright yellow, bumpy sphere with pale greenish-yellow flesh.

AROMA 5 out of 5 stars

Extraordinary perfume when cut or zested. Fills the room with a delightfully high-pitched orange fragrance. It literally makes my eyebrows go up as I breathe it in.

TEXTURE 3.5 out of 5 stars

Fairly dense when cut with a knife. Thin rind and mildly juicy flesh. Few seeds.

TASTE 3.5 out of 5 stars

Reminds me of a grown up version of sour orange pixie sticks.

OVERALL 3.88 out of 5 stars

This fruit is basically the polar opposite of the Mango Orange I reviewed last week. This baby is all acidity. It is just over-the-top sour. That being said, it has this really sweet high note that I thoroughly enjoy and while I couldn’t possibly eat even a segment of this fruit, I keep going for little nibbles of the juice. I think that might be why my cheeks are starting to sweat as I type this. That, or I’m just really out of shape and simple typing raises my heart rate. Hard to say.