Friday 18 November 2011

The perfume, colour and taste of clementines

As I am typing this, my fingers smell of the clementines I just had. I try to have two every evening, after dinner and before bed. I blogged about them before, but not in English. Not for a whole post anyway. I love clementines since, well, since forever, or at least childhood. I have them from early November until Christmas, when they are in season, and for me it is the citrus fruit I associate most with Christmas. Back in Montreal, I used to buy a whole box of them, which was just as cheap as buying a bag here. It used to last me from early November until Christmas, although sometimes I had to buy a second box. England has no idea of abundance when it comes to clementines, which is a shame in the country that popularised marmalade.

There are many reasons why I love them. Their bright colours bring some warmt to the grey month that is November, they are delicious and often they don't have pips, you can easily peel them with the hands and they smell oh so nice. They also give plenty of Vitamin C, which one needs in the winter weeks ahead. Unlike most of its cousins, I prefer clementines unchanged. Oranges I prefer to drink the juice or have them in marmalade, grapefruit (another seasonal favourite from my childhood) I need to cover with sugar (my father can actually eat it... like an orange), but clementines I have like this.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You forgot to mention how the room smells after you have peeled them for ages afterwards. It reminds of summer even though it is a winter fruit. They are lovely fruit, and reading this makes me think of their scent, their taste and makes me cheerful:-)

tao.owl said...

I have a citrus tree in my yard, some sort of orange hybrid that brings lots of goodies just in time for the holidays. We make fresh juice and the kids in the neighborhood stop by to pick the fruit with their parents.