Blood oranges: beautifully sweet and good to eat

When I was a little girl, it was a huge treat to have Florida oranges in January. My mom would make this amazing ice-box cake -- Scoopity-out Orange Cake -- with fresh oranges, a dense yellow cake and a buttery rich coconut icing.  After flourless chocolate cake, it remains my favorite.

The world is quite a bit smaller today. It's nothing to see fruits and vegetables in the market from the farthest reaches of the world. But I still get excited by big beautiful oranges in winter.  The ones I love the most are blood oranges and I'm pretty impatient to see them in stores. 

This weekend I picked up a bag of gorgeous Sicilian grown Tarocco oranges.  If I were in Italy, the fruit might come wrapped in an attractive paper wrapper that for collectors has become as much a prize as the fruit itself. 

For once, I was delighted that my son is a picky fruit eater.  I knew that these thin-skinned beauties would be mine alone to savor.

The largest of the blood oranges, the elongated Tarocco thrives on the volcanics ashes and sunny, warm climate of eastern Sicily where it is grown almost exclusively. With very few seeds, it is tart-sweet with delicious berry overtones. Low in calories, the Tarocco is an excellent source of vitamin C and fiber.

Most of all, the Tarocco is simply wonderful to eat.

Comments

[Mary]

Thanks Louise! I've got a lot in the works for Eat. Drink. Memory. in 2009. Now if they'd just quit putting those wrinkle cream ads up here...

[Louise Crawford]

your blog looks very nice.