What a Little Minneola Can Do, Part Two

Complete This Sentence: _______ is the Spice of Life.

A few years ago I was introduced to the Santa Rosa plum. We hit it off immediately.

What I love about the Santa Rosa plum is that it's not just sweet. It has sweetness, to be sure, but its flavor is also deep, full-bodied.

And the kumquat! I'd only seen kumquats on the edges of plates, looking pretty, but one day I was curious and bit into one. Yowza! The outside is sweet, the inside, tart. It's a vacation for your mouth.

Food surprises you. The best artists do that. Like some of my favorite musicians--Bela Fleck, for example--who don't just play one kind of music. Check out what Mark O'Connor is doing for music education: teaching kids to play violin in all different genres, from Day One of their studies. Hats off! That's what'll save us in the end: the people who can see there's more than one way to do things, more than one way to see things.

And what's the best laboratory for this experiment, this question of, "What else tastes good to me? And what do I mean by 'tasting good'? What else could I try?"

Where did I taste my first Santa Rosa plum?

The farmers' market.

No, I don't get a commission. As I may have mentioned, life is unfair.

But come to think of it, my commission is the opportunity to taste, week after week, all over town, flavors I've never tasted before (along with some old favorites).

Tasting blackberries last year, the tartness of some didn't seem odd or wrong, something to be rejected, but just a different flavor--a different note on the scale, you could say.

Fast forward to the other night. I wanted a nosh. Had a minneola in the fruit bin. Cut it open, and boy, was that tart! (It was probably following a cookie. And I later remembered minneolas come from a mixed marriage and looked it up: half grapefruit.) But my first thought, after "What?" was "That's a really bright flavor." And I started thinking of ways to use it.

So back to your orange. Taste it. Is this really a bad orange, or just an orange that's heavier on texture than juice?

Let's assume this orange is a fleshy orange. Use it. Work it. We all know how to highlight the best qualities in something and camouflage the less-than-fabulous. Women do it with makeup. Men do it with facial hair.

Next time: Where Does Salad Dressing Come From?

©2010, 2014, 2015 Laynie Tzena.