Much of the value of food is lost by serving it dully.
To get your money’s worth out of such a common thing as an orange, for example, you should eat it in the way that’s most attractive to all the senses of sight, touch, smell and appetite. That’s how they do it in Spain, the West Indies, Brazil, Florida, California — in fact everywhere that oranges are raised.
1. The very handiest and juiciest way we have ever encountered is to jab a strong steel fork through the blow or blossom end (the other is the stem end). Hold your fork straight up in the air, as table manners say you shouldn’t, and with an extra sharp steel knife cut off not only the skin but an eighth of an inch or less of the pulp beneath, so the juice begins to bleed and there are no dry tough membranes to obstruct your hearty tooth work. Cut off all the skin, that is, except a small cup of it just around the fork, which part you loosen up to catch the juice, and that’s the reason the fork is held upright. Also, it’s important to jab that fork right in to the hilt to keep the orange from wobbling, since this slicing art is a little strenuous. The knife must be steel and very sharp. Steel is the only metal that should ever touch any citrous fruit, since it doesn’t affect the taste or change the temperature as other metals do.
When finished you have the most enticing juicy globe you ever sunk teeth in. Then all there is to do is hold the fork steady while you chew your way around, occasionally supping up the juice that quickly collects in the little cup of skin at the bottom. We can never think of oranges without seeing Art Young’s cosmic cartoon of that swollen profiteer squeezing the juice of an orange into his lardy face while a hungry little you-and-me stands between his legs, about knee-high to that whopping grasshopper, catching the drip.
Although there are easily 101 ways to eat 1 orange, we haven’t room to list them all here; these samples must suffice:
2. West Indian Juice and Pulp — pick out a thin-skinned, ripe and juicy orange for your victim. Roll or knead it as you would a lemon to gently break down some of the juice cells. Then take a thin, springy knife of trusty steel, sharp enough to slash a seed in two as neatly as a razor severs a hair. Cut over a bowl to catch the juice as you pare the skin off deeply in a continuous spiral, just as you peel an apple in the Halloween game of throwing the skin over your shoulder to divine the initials of your future mate, or something. Drop the bleeding orange into the bowl and gently press out all the juice that flows freely. This you drink, and you’ll find its flavor miraculously better than just mechanically reamed juice; for it is the virgin sap, unmixed with pressed pulp, the same as the grape juice which makes the first cru of fine wines (indeed the best Tokay is obtained from grapes that press themselves by their own weight).
The orange pulp is then chewed from the slightly pressed core, and in order not to waste anything you can throw the skin over your shoulder and read your fate, or better still, keep it to drape from the rim of a tall drink glass and spiral down in the liquid in the style known as Horse’s Neck.
3. Sucking — first roll a thin skinned orange (the kind called Valencias in the trade) on a board or between your hands, to start the juice running; then with your sharp knife cut away all the oily, bitter, colored skin at the stem end, leaving a wide rim of the white to soothe the lips. Ream the fruit with a thin blade, cutting away top tissues of the sections and starting the juice sluicing from all of them. After that Nature tells you just what to do.
4. Sweet sucking — make a little bigger hole and push one or two cubes of sugar well down toward the center, then suck the juice through the sugar, as Russians suck tea by holding a sweet
lump of candy or sugar between the teeth and inhaling the hot tea through it. Or improve on this by thrusting a piece of peppermint candy stick straight through the middle, from hole to heel, and suck up the juice with that fine flavor added.
5. Cinnamon-flavored — push down a couple spoonfuls of cinnamon sugar in place of the cubes, or use the tiny red cinnamon drops that also flavor baked apples. You might like to suck it through the natural straw of a whole cinnamon stick instead; or give it a mint flavor by pushing in a couple of life-savers, or add spicy oriental zest by sticking in 3 or 4 sen-sen pellets, licorice — almost any high-flavored candy that will dissolve as quick as sugar.
6. Alcoholic — first soak your sugar cube in rum, kirsch, curacao, brandy, or your favorite liqueur. This makes a fresh fruity cocktail. There’s no objection, of course, to mixing your drinks in this innocuous style; so soak one lump in rum, and the other in whatever liquor or liqueur you fancy, even gin, to make your own Mr. Boston.
7. Halving — cut a wide strip of the colored skin around the belly band, leaving the white. Slice orange in half and gnaw, or spoon out the contents with a pointed spoon.
8. Mexican style — as above, but sprinkle with coarse salt, and red pepper.
9. In quarters or eighths — halve each half or quarter it, to make handy mouthfuls for snapping up with the teeth.
10. In sections — peel away all skin, or knead it a little and strip off with your fingers; remove any white or membranes, separate into sections and either remove the fruity cellophanic wrapping from each or eat them individually as is. Or split lengthwise and suck the flesh out of the tissue wrapper.
11. In Segments or Wedges — peel deep with a sharp knife so not only skin and white are sliced off but the top membrane of the juicy meat as well; leaving it exposed. A sharp steel knife is necessary because a dull one will make the juice bleed. Always remember — never use a silver fruit knife on an orange, not only because it’s dull, but because it spoils the taste, and is too good a conductor of heat. Steel ruins the flavor of some fruits, but not the citrous ones. Cut down through the flesh on both sides of dividing membranes and lift out the segments or wedges one at a time and pop into your mouth. You’ll find these more succulent than sections still wedded to the membrane. The easiest way to do this is to jab a fork in the end all the way down to the core, to use as a firm handle.
For this method, the bigger the orange, the better. A variation is to peel off only the acid colored skin that bites the lips and then slice off irregular wedges from end to end, using the white pith as a handle in eating.
12. Sugared Wedges — heap in a saucer the kind of sugar you prefer, granulated, powdered, brown, maple, or even colored. Make wedges as above and dip in each slice expertly on its way to your mouth. A few drops of orange flower water, curacao or rum sprinkled over the sugar gives a fragrant, elusive overtone.
Try this with maple syrup or honey, if you will, and even add dashes of liqueurs, rose water, Angostura Bitters or one drop of Tabasco.
13. Rummed Wedges — vary the above by filling your saucer with kirsch, cognac, curacao, rum or any favorite tipple, with or without sugar, and just dunk the wedges ad lib.
14. Peppy Wedges — do them Tehuantepec style for a change by just touching an edge to salt and red pepper, or paprika, mixed in your saucer. This really gives an amazing flavor, if not used too hot, but maybe you have to be born along the Texas-Chili border to really go for it in such style. But pepper and salt do make oranges sweeter the same as they do honey-dew melons, and they also are supposed to help one digest them.
15. Rim Triangles — leave skin and everything on, slice the orange into rounds of pleasing thickness, as you would cut up a whole loaf of bread. Then cut each round or slice into handy triangles and use the rim of skin for a handle to lift them to the mouth one by one. Eat as is, or dip in anything sweet, or peppery. Perhaps you’d like to try them with a touch of ground cloves or ginger for a change. There’s no law against experimenting.
16. Whole sliced — peel with a sharp knife, right into the juicy meat, then slice down in whole rounds, sift a little plain sugar, or fancy sugars, each of a different color or flavor if you like, between the slices, sandwich them up in the original orange shape and you have a flavorsome melange or rainbow to fork into your mouth slice by slice, or cut down in mouthfuls with a sharp knife. And don’t let us discourage you from seasoning one layer sweet and the next salty or peppery for piquant contrast. Go as far as you like, dust on different spices, sprinkle on a drop or two of Tabasco or Angostura Bitters. There’s plenty of gastronomic authority for all of these and more besides. And by the way, the smallest oranges are best for slicing and often as sweet as though you’d actually stolen them.
17. Crosscut slices — cut the peel right off to the juicy meat. Then instead of slicing straight down, slice on the bias, removing any outstanding pith or membranes. Cut these slices in ½s, ¼s, 8ths, 16ths, or hash them, but be sure to catch all juice in a saucer and eat everything out of it with a spoon, plain or seasoned to fancy.
18. Creamed — dab cream cheese, mayonnaise, or whipped cream on oranges sliced in any style you fancy.
19. Rolled — like candied apples on a stick, oranges may be peeled right down to the juicy meat and then rolled in coconut, crushed peppermint stick or cinnamon drops, cocoa, paprika, crushed ginger nuts, or any spicy dust you say; harpoon firmly with your fork and nibble around at leisure.
20. Skewered or pegged — in Kingston, Jamaica, at the colorful Hallelujah Market, oranges are sold freshly pared to the pulp, run through with wooden skewers, a small patch of skin left at each end to hold the stick tight. They’re eaten on the spot, simply by holding at both ends and rotating the luscious morsel between the lips for snatching juicy bites. The same custom prevails throughout the West Indies, from Bermuda to Trinidad, and is commonly called “pegging.”
21. Fancy forking — all eating of whole oranges impaled on forks is but a refinement of the skewer method, to avoid using both hands. But there are even fancy refinements of orange forking, adopted by ladies who don’t like to smear the lip-stick all over the ears. One is to leave the skin on and cut in six or eight slices, not around the middle of the orange, but from stem to stern. Then each slice is impaled with a fork through the skin; seeds and excess membranes are cut away, and the new-moon segments chewed most elegantly, while held horizontal with the fork.
In preparing oranges whole, it’s well to recall the Assyrian proverb — An orange is like a cat on a chimney pot. It may look round to you, but it isn’t.
And another good saw to remember is — The more juice in the eye, the less in the mouth.
People in prunes-and-prisms days used to say with shocked modesty that oranges shouldn’t be sucked in public and that really the only suitable place to consume one was in the privacy of the bath tub. They’re wrong; that’s the proper place to mangle a mango.
Here’s a juicy quotation of those orange horrors, from Cranford: When oranges came in, a curious proceeding was gone through. Miss Jenkyns did not like to cut the fruit for, as she observed, the juice all ran out nobody knows where; sucking (only I think she used some more recondite word) was, in fact, the only way of enjoying oranges, but then there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone through by little babies and so, after dessert in orange season, Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matty used to rise up, possess themselves of an orange in silence and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to indulge in sucking oranges.
Some people like to chew the fresh peel or just sit for a while and smell it, and we see no harm in that, unless it’s one of those “Color Added” abominations. The only fit use we can think of for those fakes, that even come tied up in red bags so they’ll look healthy-cheeked until you get them in your hand, is to turn them inside out as containers for blue-flamed Café Diable, or to make one of those silly little scalloped baskets with or without a bow-ribboned handle, to hold the inedible pats of fruit salad with which customers are molested at penthouse pink teas.
Half of the promise of an orange lurks in that natural golden glow which gave it the name “Golden Apple” in ancient days. Oranges too were then considered to be the mythical ambrosia that the gods snacked upon; and some sentimental prohibitionist or fruitarian once jingled:
“Here’s to the orange,
The fruit divine,
Whose golden juice Is better than wine.”
But the chorus to this is obviously “Oh yeah?”