A friend told me recently that squeezing an orange peel releases “flammable” material. Sure enough, when I squeeze an orange peel (Navel variety) by my lighter, the aromatic substance released “sparks”.
I’ve never heard of/seen this before.
Any thoughts?
BTW…aren’t oranges great? Navel, Valencia, Clementines, Mineolas, wow.
There are little globules of oil (oil of orange) in the skin - as well as being flammable, it is highly aromatic, which is why the rind of citrus fruits is often scraped or pared off for use as flavouring.
Thanks Mangetout. Were you always aware of this? Ever sprayed the oil and seen the little sparkles? I knew about the fragrance, but not the fire.
Why was I never told about this? What else is being held back?
Yes, I’ve known this for a while; if you slice through the skin of an orange with a sharp knife, you can actually see the little sacs in which the oil is stored; in thinner skinned citrus, such as satsumas, the oil glands actually make little dark bumps on the outer rind, if you look closely.
I’ve never actually set light to the oil myself, but I’ve seen it done over drinks at cocktail bars; I have sprayed it many a time by bending pieces of skin though.
As to what else is being held back… well… are you sure you want to know?
OK then, here it comes; most bananas contain a large (up to four inches long) worm-like insect larva, but it is seldom detected because:
-It becomes motionless when disturbed
-Its body has a texture, taste and appearance that is remarkably similar to the banana itself.
[sub]OK, it’s not actually true; I made the whole ‘banana worm’ thing up, but you have to admit, I had you going there for a moment[/sub]
Try spritzing that aromatic oil onto a foam coffee cup some time.
hehehe…I suspect it will degrade the styrofoam in some way…
As far as bannana worms, I suspect that they provide the hallucinogenic properties to cooked bannana skins (4/20 joke)
Try spritzing that aromatic oil onto your testicles sometime.
Don’t want to talk about it.
The expressed oil consists of mainly limonene with citral, decyl aldehyde, methyl anthranilate, linalool and terpineol.
All flammable organics. Do an MSDS search on them for more info.
I learned this in bartending class about 22 years ago. It works with lemons, too. When you ask for a drink “with a twist” (of lemon peel), it’s the oil that flavors the drink, and a good bartender will twist the rind over the drink so the oil spritzes into it.
That’s funny. This topic came up during a dinner party last Sunday. How do you ‘learn’ stuff that supposedly everyone ‘knows’?
One of the people at the party recently ran a marathon and had bloody nipples cause, as everyone knows, a t-shirt abraids them during the course of a marathon and they sell nip-guards just for that purpose. But he didn’t know. But as soon as he mentioned it to someone, they would say, “Well, everyone knows you have to wear nip-guards when you run a marathon.”
I learned about the orange oil (and peanuts) in jr. high science class back in the '70s.
Dried orange peel makes a good fire-lighter . Even now I can see my grandmother drying in the hearth ready to start next day’s fire.
Poor grandma! :eek:
So how long does it take to completely dry a grandmother? 
Forgive me , I have got a bad case of flue and am not thinking straight. I meant to say she dried the orange peel in the hearth
See I even spelt flu wrong . It’s the thought of that fireplace. 
Rayne Man: Was your Grandmother an Orange Peel, by any chance? I confess I find the scenario you described highly unlikely but mentally entertaining.
But they are pollinated by bats, which is almost as cool.
Perhaps I coild publish a book ( along the lines of that one about dead cats ) called 101 Things To Do With A Dried Granny