Mandarins

A few years ago, a coworker shared a large bag of blood oranges from her mother’s garden, and it reminded me of how much I enjoy citrus fruits. Despite finding them difficult to eat, I discovered a method that works for me: I cut the blood oranges into quarters and then eat the fruit directly from the skin, even though it’s messy. However, I don’t have the tolerance to eat oranges this way, I recently switched to mandarins as my citrus fruit of choice.

I enjoy eating mandarins because they are one of the more accessible citrus fruits. They are simple to peel, and I can then separate the different segments to eat. However, I tend to gag on mandarins with seeds, so I must be careful which mandarins I choose. One popular mandarin with vibrant orange skin enclosing easy-to-peel segments that are low in seeds and filled with sweet juice is the Mandarin ‘Afourer’. It originated in Morocco and is still considered a reasonably new import to the Australian citrus scene, having been released to select growers in the year 2000. Since then, it has become a common option on grocery store shelves alongside the usual suspects like Imperials and Emperors.