Ordinary Gweilo

This piece in The Guardian caught my attention (you have to scroll down for the fruity part).

Explaining the British love of the satsuma is another matter. Martin Dunnett, Capespan’s procurement director (the man, incidentally, responsible for the seedless lemon), suggests that it is a combination of our national love of a slightly bland, sweet flavour and the easy-peel factor.

When I was a child (in the UK) satsumas used to be a Christmas treat, and although they are now imported from different places around the world they are still only available for part of the year. The “story” here is that there may be less satsumas available in the UK in October and November. Oh no!

Britain is the largest importer of satsumas in the world and, so the story goes, Spanish orange growers are changing en masse to producing the sharper clementines, which other European consumers prefer. If this trend continues, one Christmas soon there won’t be enough satsumas to go round.

I have often wondered about the difference between mandarins, clementines and satsumas. All are basically small oranges, but I suppose it is true that satsumas tend to have a looser skin and to be sweeter.

In Hong Kong we don’t get the same choice – only mandarins seem to be widely available here, always with seeds and usually dried up and horrible, the only exception to this being at Chinese New Year when smaller, juicier (and often seedless) fruit are available. Fortunately, Japanese supermarkets sometimes have a version of the satsuma on sale, and at a reasonable price. I first found them in City Super, but they now seem to have spread to the likes of Seiyu (where prices are more reasonable). However, they are very perishable so there is no point in bulk buying (unlike oranges).

I have to admit that my fondness for satsumas is somewhat irrational, but I must have convinced myself at an early age that oranges were bad and satsumas were good. In truth, there’s nothing at all wrong with oranges, especially the many seedless varieties, and they are always available in Park’n’Shop.