March 22 2004, 12:17 AM The Blemish Betrays the Sweetness

Consider the orange, the blood orange, with thick, structural skin and purple-black cells bursting with juice and a cloying tang. I am no expert on oranges: John McPhee has written an excellent book about oranges, and that is most of what I know from oranges beyond my every day experiences. We do not live in a climate in any way hospitable to citrus, so what we do get comes to us on truck or train, and we are lucky when what we get is good. We sometimes get good clementines, thins skins falling off to offer puffs of nectar'd floral scent. We sometimes get good navels, with a taste that puts popsicles to shame. I have a stack of Honey Tangerines in the kitchen for the coming week. Sometimes, we get the chance at blood oranges.

We buy them when we do, of course. There are many things that can be done with the things: sauces, fancy compotes, a fruit salad reminiscent of murder, duck. However: particularly in winter (it is still winter here) it more often happens that we simply eat the things, hungry for a peek into the sweetness of spring and the brightness of summer. At the market, then, the citrus was piled high with one large bin of mostly perfect blood oranges bright under the strong light of the window. I selected two fruits for their beauty, and one for its deformity, the ruddy skin marred by a thin patch of scabbed damage. The things are built to take abuse; the things are built to fall to the ground when perfect. I should have perhaps shied from the odd skinned one, but I did not. I like to think that I know better, but I hardly know anything. We took them all home.

We have eaten two, and the mangled one was too much sweeter than its perfect other cousin. I look forward to the third one; in the meantime, I will enjoy this little fairy tale, perfect in all ways except that it's true.