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Thing of the Day - Last Dance with HoneyBell (Oranges, that is)
- by Nancy, February 03, 2010
Most of you know how much I love these oranges. Look at the dripping juice. Clean, thirst-quenching flavor. And that color! It rivals the vermilion oil paint, so dear and rare, that I portion out in tiny dabs because it’s so strong and hard to harness in a composition. I mentioned in a previous post that my sweet family sends me these oranges every year as a gift. No, that last statement is not true entirely: honeybells are not oranges at all. They’re a hybrid of a tangerine and a grapefruit, grown by grafting to sour orange root stock. The mystery of their origin is debated here and there. Some say their history reaches back in part over 3000 years ago to Southeast Asia. Others report they were the grafting project of a creative Florida farmer in the 1940’s. They’re here on jellypress again because if you’d like to try them, there’s still time to order them but not much. Today the company that sells them, Cushman’s, sent me this link
to order them before they sing their “swan song.” Then they won’t be available until next year for a few short weeks as always. Fresh. Bright. Full of vitamin C. We could use that in the middle of a north-eastern winter, no?
To find out about Laura's search for a long lost family recipe, click [