We’ve always enjoyed clementine season. But in the last ?ten? years or so, they’ve changed: they used to be lovely loose-skinned treats that were easy to peel. All of a sudden one year most of them were tight-skinned. Are they all getting plastic surgery? Or Botox? Or is this just a shift to a different variety that the growers prefer? We sure don’t!
Anyone else notice this? Anyone know anything about it?
The ones I get seem to vary bag to bag - same as in the past. Maybe a few more tough to peel.
Woody, sour and no juice to boot. I’d be fine with them being difficult to peel if they freaking tasted nice but noooooooo.
The tart, juicy, easy-to-peel citrus are Satsuma Mandarins. Clementines are, as you describe, another and inferior variety of tangerine.
Moved to Cafe Society from GQ.
We recently had some oranges that were very hard to peel. Could it be something in the environment?
That’s the way it is here too. And we’ve had many more good ones (in both the flavor and ease of peeling) than bad ones. It’s pretty hard to make fruit consistent.
Nope. We have Satsumas available; they’re nice but different. Not what we used to get in boxes marked “Clementines”.
The small hard-to-peel ones (clementines? tangerines? I don’t know) are annoying because they squirt juice, but provided they are actually ripe I think they are usually much tastier than the big loose-skinned satsumas. The optimal solution is to have your fruit-butler peel them and drop segments into your mouth as you recline on your couch.
Used to be they all came from Spain. Now there seem to be dozens of imitators that look like the Clementines of old, but are from somewhere else and are hard to peel, and could be tasty but could also be dry and flavorless.
My guess, the Spanish ones came on the market and were a smash hit, there was a rush to get knock-offs on the shelves, growers created hybrids that were cheaper to produce and looked gorgeous but lacking the certain qualities that made them successful in the first place. Like Delicious-variety apples. Those, too, used to be good.
All of the oranges here are from Spain or Italy, but there are different classifications. The cheaper ones are in a net bag, then there are loose ones and then the more expensive loose ones. Even within the categories there is fluctation in the quality. Some years back they would come in a little balsa wood crate, which probably added to the cost as well.
It seems that the good ones are only in the middle of the season. Too early or too late and they are not as sweet and sometimes even dried out.
Growing up in Seattle we would always get mandarin oranges from Japan. Seems they are too expensive to harvest.
Totally agree on the decline of clementines. The solution is to switch (if you can) to Ojai Pixie tangerines. They are the best.
Just about all I’ve thought about clementines is that they used to be available for a shorter season tan they are now.
Just had 2 juicy, sweet, easy to peel ones.
I do notice sometimes the bags have a lot of greener ones - they seem to be firmer/harder to peel.
I’ve noticed that too. I wonder if Citrus greening is involved.
The clementines we used to get until March ran out at the beginning of the year and I tried a bag of something called Halo mandarins. I think that’s a brand, not a variety, but that is not clear. They are tiny and delicious (with an occasional exception), but expensive. $9 for 2 lb.
If you can get your hands on some Honeybell Tangelos… oh, my! Don’t know if they sell them outside of Florida. (My understanding was they did not but I haven’t lived there for more than 20 years!)
One of my coworkers has a solution for the bad clementine problem: always eat them in 3s: Peel all 3 of them, taste each one, and eat the best tasting one last.
Hah! I asked my brother-in-law, who grew up on a farm, if he had any tips for buying cantaloupes. He said sure: go to the store, buy three cantaloupes, then throw the two bad ones away.
@2_More_Bits: I see Honeybells in the store here occasionally. They are nice.
Moved to Cafe Society from GQ, and this time we mean it.
There was a brand of these called “Cuties” (I think) where you could get a small box of them - these were the easy-to-peel variety and no seeds.
In a nearby area we have Mandarin growers that have been there for decades, where you can get fresh Satsuma and Clementine varieties, usually sold side-by-side.
I think the Clementines are the harder to peel and a bit more tart variety, while the Satsumas are generally sweeter, easier to peel, and a lot softer fruit. Maybe the switching of these varieties due to market conditions has people perceiving a difference?