Fruit Maven » Grapefruit

Cocktail Grapefruit (Mandalo)

Fruit Maven — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:39:10 +0000

If you look like a duck and walk like a duck but are actually half a cat, then this is the fruit for you!

APPEARANCE 3 out of 5 stars

Green and yellow blotchy skin; squatty body, with pale yellow flesh and white seeds. This is a funny little frump of a grapefruit in the looks department.

AROMA 5 out of 5 stars

Strong, floral, sweet and acidic; pure grapefruit scent. Smelling this I am oddly compelled to wash my hair.

TEXTURE 3.5 out of 5 stars

Little capsules of extremely juicy flesh; tons of seeds.

TASTE 4 out of 5 stars

Sweet, not acidic at all, quiet and concentrated grapefruit essence.

OVERALL 3.88 out of 5 stars

In some ways this is a confusing grapefruit to me. It is mild and lacks the sourness that so many grapefruits have and yet it isn’t extremely sweet like a ruby red either. It’s just a mellow yellow grapefruit with an insane amount of seeds. Nonetheless I keep buying it because it tastes so refreshing. If only I was inclined to do some kind of cleanse. This would definitely be my grapefruit of choice. But I won’t be doing that any time soon as I have spent a good number of years amassing these toxins and have no intention of letting them go that easily. Mine! I did just get a juicer though. You can read about my new fancy Breville Juice Fountain Elite 800jexl here. Oh yeah – say that 3x fast.

FRUIT

Grapefruit

VARIETY

Cocktail

PEAK

Winter

ORIGIN

University California Riverside

GROWN

Unknown

PURCHASED

Grocery Store
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NOTES

So this grapefruit just gets more confusing with every bite and every lookup. Apparently it isn’t really a grapefruit exactly. It is a cross between a Frua Mandarin orange and a Siamese Sweet pummelo. And a Frua is actually a cross between a King mandarin and a Dancy tangerine. All of which is why it has another name too, the Mandalo. I have one word for you Cocktail grapefruit — Imposter!

RECIPES

Broiled Grapefruit
Cocktail Grapefruit and Tarragon Sorbet

Melogold Grapefruit

Fruit Maven — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:22:59 +0000

If you are the kind of person who would start the grapefruit diet and then proceed to cheat by eating the absolute biggest one you can find, then we should be friends and this is the fruit for you!

APPEARANCE 3 out of 5 stars

Extremely large (6+ inches across) with yellowish green pebbly skin and pale yellow flesh (in that top picture over there it is the big one sitting behind a normal size grapefruit); weighs over two pounds. Not completely round as it has a bit of a squatty, mountain top shape to it.

AROMA 4 out of 5 stars

Perfumy and sweet grapefruit fragrance.

TEXTURE 4 out of 5 stars

Juicy! with little soft pockets of flesh; very few seeds.

TASTE 4 out of 5 stars

Only the slightest bit of acidity at the very first taste that mellows into complicated and lovely grapefruit flavor.

OVERALL 3.75 out of 5 stars

I have such a hard time with fruit that is gigantic. I just have a bias toward small, cute, little nibbles. Don’t get me wrong, I love things with ridiculous proportions, in fact the more ridiculous the better. But if its just BIG, then my response is usually – eh. I liked this grapefruit well enough, but after going through my ritual of cutting it in half, cutting between the membranes and scooping out a bite, I had to then take it to the cutting board and slice the “bite” in to three more bites. RITUAL RUINED. Then after I was full from the “one” bite, I had no idea what to do with the rest of it. I ate it every day for a week.

FRUIT

Grapefruit

VARIETY

Melogold

PEAK

Winter

ORIGIN

UC Riverside
California

GROWN

Unknown

PURCHASED

Asian Market

NOTES

The melogold is a cross between a pummelo and a grapefruit, developed at University of California, Riverside in the 1950s. On a more important note, grapefruits can be used to cure nail fungus. What? You don’t want to hear about nail fungus on a fruit blog? You just think about how sorry you would be the next time you got a nail fungus if I held back this information. You are welcome. So I was thinking with this humongous grapefruit maybe you could just do some sort of foot soak. Just cut it in half and stick your toes in each half. Yeah, so I just saved you $50 at the spa and cured your disgusting foot problem. Oh the value I am offering the world is just growing exponentially.

RECIPES

Baked Grapefruit
Oroblanco/Melogold Ambrosia

Marsh Grapefruit

Fruit Maven — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:33:14 +0000

If you think the spork was the greatest invention of the last century, then this is the fruit for you!

APPEARANCE 3 out of 5 stars

Yellow skin, yellow flesh – big as a grapefruit!

AROMA 4 out of 5 stars

Sweet and floral

TEXTURE 4 out of 5 stars

Extremely juicy with very few, quite small seeds (most sites claim this is a seedless variety), very thick pith

TASTE 4 out of 5 stars

This has a pure grapefruit flavor – not overly acidic or tart but not super sweet or sugary either

OVERALL 3.75 out of 5 stars

I love this grapefruit. For some reason it reminds me of grapefruits in my childhood before I knew they came in the super candy sweet versions. This one kept squirting juice in my eye every time I dug in to take a bite. Also, my lips tingled like crazy after eating it. All of which, I found completely charming.

FRUIT

Graperfruit

VARIETY

Marsh

PEAK

Winter

ORIGIN

Lakeland, Florida

GROWN

Creekside Tropicals
California

PURCHASED

Farmer’s Market

NOTES

I have somewhat mixed feelings on the fact that this fruit warrants a spoon specifically designed for eating it. Behold the Grapefruit Spoon! I have always painstakingly used a knife to cut the fruit in half, then slice between each and every little wedge so that I could later scoop it out with a spoon at my leisure. Grapefruit spoons essentially save a step. As previously mentioned on this site, I am all for laziness but somehow this just seems wrong to me. I suppose we could label it “efficiency”, take joy in “needing” a new cute little spoon and call it a day, but I think I might just take stand here and say NO! The ritual of the grapefruit must be maintained, passed down. What kind of world do we want to leave to our children? A world with confusing drawers of specialized spoons? I think not!

RECIPES

Grapefruit Martini
Vietnamese Vermicelli (Bun) with Ginger-Grapefruit Sauce