Greenfellow - Fruit of the week

While the snows of winter are slowly giving way to wetter and slightly warmer weather, outside of California and the few other states that are producing vegetables and fruit this time of year, it can sometimes be frustrating to find good seasonal and local produce at the grocery store. The farmer’s markets haven’t started up here in Chicago, although I do knwo that further south in North Carolina and Florida, you can find plenty of tasty produce for sale. So what’s a greenfellow to do? Well I always make a few stops on the web to see what is in season locally. One great resource is the NRDC Eat Local site which gives a great overview as to what’s available in your state in each month. You can also check out the Food Network seasonal produce guide.

This week it’s more citrus and while last week it was blood oranges, with their slightly raspberry taste (yummy!) I think this week lemons are a good choice. First of all because while you may think that lemonade is only something for hot summer days, it’s also great when it’s colder outside. The citric acid helps to break up mucus and phlegm if you have a cold…

Also, you probably already know that the citric acid in lemons acts as a short term preservative:

When lemon juice is sprinkled on certain foods that tend to oxidize and turn brown after being sliced, such as apples, bananas and avocados, the acid acts as a short-term preservative by denaturing the enzymes that cause browning and degradation.

Drinking too much “straight” lemon juice can cause your tooth enamel to rot out but that’s only if you don’t water it down a little bit with some filtered water. Add a little bit of honey instead of sugar when making lemonade and be sure to add ice after you mix the filtered water, honey and lemon juice together, otherwise the honey takes longer to break down due to the temperature of the ice.

Meyer lemons are actually a hybrid citrus; a combination of mandarin orange and lemon..

‘Meyer’–a hybrid, possibly lemon X mandarin orange; introduced into the United States as S.P.I. #23028, by the agricultural explorer, Frank N. Meyer, who found it growing as an ornamental pot-plant near Peking, China, in 1908; obovate, elliptical or oblong, round at the base, occasionally faintly necked and furrowed or lobed; apex rounded or with short nipple; of medium size, 2 1/4 to 3 in (5.7-7.5 cm) wide and 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 in (6.25-9 cm) high; peel light-orange with numerous small oil glands, 1/8 to 1/4 in (3-6 mm) thick; pulp pale orange-yellow, usually in 10 segments with tender walls, melting, juicy, moderately acid with medium lemon flavor; seeds small, 8 to 12. Tends to be everbearing but fruits mostly from December to April. Tree small, with few thorns, prolific, cold-resistant; produces few water sprouts, and is only moderately subject to greasy spot and oil spotting. It is easily and commonly grown from cuttings. Does well on sweet orange and rough lemon rootstocks; is not grafted onto sour orange because it is a carrier of a virulent strain of tristeza. Grown for home use in California; in Florida, both for home use and to some extent commercially for concentrate though the product must be enhanced by the addition of peel oil from true lemons, since that from ‘Meyer’ peel is deficient in flavoring properties. Has been fairly extensively planted in Texas and in Queensland, Australia, and New Zealand.

Something to think about when you go out to eat or drink and you ask for lemon with your beverage….

From what the video states, it seems more likely that the cause of all that bacteria on lemons is caused by people not washing their hands when handing lemons. They are supposed to use tongs when handling lemons or at least don’t use the same knife to slice a lemon that you also cut raw meat with. Of course they didn’t mention how much bacteria can be found in restaurant ice.

Some tasty ways to serve lemons without germs and bacteria :