evclides

evclides OP t1_j223080 wrote

Try cutting a lime into wedges and leaving it covered in salt in a jar on the counter for a week, it takes out the most bitter elements and you can rinse off the salt and eat them like an orange.

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evclides OP t1_j222jf5 wrote

I only recently learned that cider was America’s drink before the temperance movement, but because Germans tended to be less into teetotalerism than Anglos, beer survived but cider didn’t, until recently. I love cider.

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evclides OP t1_j21wkf3 wrote

It’s really easy, basically a crema catalana in a pie crust, but you slice 2 bitter oranges, half of a lemon and half of a sweet orange into half rounds and lay them in layers at the bottom before you pour the custard in. Highly recommend!

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evclides OP t1_j21rfqn wrote

I think the pie originated there. I remember reading a story that some lady saw fishermen in Key West take condensed milk and limes and put them on bread for lunch and decided to make that, but most recipe origins are mythological.

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evclides OP t1_j20hvqn wrote

That’s why Johnny Appleseed was so important, the fact that he threw appleseeds all over an insane amount of land that created an amazing diversity of apple varietals. The vast majority of them were probably disgusting but 1/8 of a percent of 1m is still 12.5k.

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evclides OP t1_j1z54bn wrote

Np, the original citrus is the citron and that’s what became everything else. Citron is still grown a lot because it’s a large part of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot but it’s not nice to eat, I think if it were fermented out in salt like how I do with lemons or put in a fruitcake it would be good though.

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evclides OP t1_j1yz5g6 wrote

Yes all citrus fruits aside from the citron are hybrids but sweet oranges, bitter oranges, Persian limes, grapefruits are very recent creations from two domesticated species, the Key lime was just what limes were for a very long time. It’s arbitrary but if you find a recipe from the Romans or medieval Baghdad or wherever that calls for limes, they mean Key limes.

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evclides OP t1_j1yw4nb wrote

Citrus is really interesting, oranges are also a hybrid between a mandarin and a pomelo, grapefruits are a hybrid of those hybrid oranges and a certain kind of pomelo that developed in the Caribbean and my favorite bitter Seville oranges are the same kind of hybrid but with a different kind of pomelo, and lemons, pomelo, mandarins, key limes and all citrus fruits that aren’t taxonomic hybrids are actually hybrids of the citron and different unknown fruits.

I bought key limes to make a pie this past summer and found that I like them better than “regular” limes, they’re very bitter but in a much more pleasant way than lemons or “regular limes” and even though they’re half the size you get double the amount of juice. Same thing with quinces which are one of the ancestors of the apple, I get pies that are less goopy and sickeningly sweet if I use quinces and honey rather than regular apples.

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