Oranges: how to buy the 'good' ones

[Darienne]

We live in the far frozen north and all the oranges which we buy are imported.  (Well, as far as I know.)  Usually once a week I make an orange Julep for our supper of popcorn.  Yup, I know it sounds strange but we like it.

DH does most of the shopping and on the list is Navel oranges.  Sometimes they are sweet and tasty...often they are dull, tasteless...almost horrid on occasion.  However, they all look good.  They look great!

Does anyone have a set of criteria which he/she uses to pick only the 'good' oranges.  Or just how does one figure out this one?

 

signed: tired of flavorless oranges....

[Shel_B]

 

FWIW, grandpa was a very well regarded produce man, so I know that much of what is said and shown in this video is absolutely

correct.   As with much produce, and as mentioned in the video, look for oranges that are heavy for their size.  If you can find

Valencia oranges, give them a try.  They are often juicier.

[cyalexa]

In addition to heavy for for their size, I choose those with smoother skin because I think they generally have thinner skin. I particularly like my limes with thinner skin.

[heidih]

The video certainly makes the common sensible points about heavy firm fruit. However the greening is not usually unripe http://fruitguys.com/almanac/2011/04/08/green-oranges-re-greening-is-about-temperature-not-sweetness  We grew a lot of citrus and this also what I observed. 

 

Navels for juice- not so much - they can have that dry issue. "Juice" oranges for  your drink is a better bet. Juice oranges can be fugly but lovely.

[Darienne]

However, my Julep has the entire orange thrown into the blender so I don't want a 'juice' orange. 

I do appreciate the posts, but they don't address the problem: it's not that the orange isn't ripe...it's that it is tasteless or even unpleasant tasting.

[cakewalk]

A while ago I passed by this fruit stand and they had the most beautiful oranges. Deep orange, a bit heavy, really beautiful. I couldn't resist, and bought three. (For a buck apiece.) They were the worst oranges ever! I wanted to juice them and then microplane the rind. I forget what I was making. I got maybe a teaspoon of juice from each orange, if that much, and the rind was so bitter. I ended up throwing them out and I bought oranges at the corner store, which were okay.

 

What I don't understand is this: it takes a lot of work and money to grow bad oranges. You still have to plant the trees and water them, you still have to hire workers to work the fields, they still need to be shipped to wherever they're going. Why waste all the energy, effort, money, etc. to grow bad produce? I don't get it.

[Smithy]

I'm always mystified by fruit stand purchases with poor fruit, but it happens. If the fruit stand is one of those personal fruit stands with hand-picked local fruit, I agree there's no excuse for poor produce.  Unfortunately, the packing process seems to be part of the equation with grocery store fruit.  We used to swear that the tree was the best place to store the fruit and the packing house ruined it.  That's a heck of a thing for citrus ranchers to admit, but it was our perception: something about the fungicide, or the ethylene treatment (that thins the skin and intensifies the color), or maybe just picking at the wrong time, damaged the fruit.

 

That isn't much help to Darienne.  My best advice, in addition to the 'heavy for its size' and the general appearance tests noted above, is to sniff carefully.  If you can train your (or your husband's) nose you'll be able to distinguish pretty reliably between a truly fresh, good orange, a once-good but now tired orange, and a never-good flat orange.  I don't know how to describe the differences, except that the truly good oranges have a bright note missing from the others.

 

Cakewalk, I agree that it takes as much time, labor, water and money to grow bad oranges as good.  One problem is choosing a good variety. From time to time an orchard needs to come out (the trees are too old, the market forces are against their size, or some such) and then the rancher needs to replant - or graft a new variety onto the old root stock. It takes a couple of years to come into production with the new variety. If it's a good variety that sells well and comes ripe at a strategic time, that's great.  If it's flat and flavorless, or looks too strange to be a good seller despite its excellent qualities, or is otherwise undesirable the grower still needs to try to recoup the expense of planting the trees and bringing them into production.

[liuzhou]

I concur. We get green oranges here pretty much al of the time. They certainly are not unripe and can be very sweet. The rest of the advice seems sensible.

 

[Darienne]

In other words...it's a pig in a poke.  Oh well...

[blue_dolphin]

12 hours ago, Darienne said:

my Julep has the entire orange thrown into the blender so I don't want a 'juice' orange

 

Is this because you want to avoid any seeds?

 

Sometimes navels are the only game in town but if other varieties are available, I would encourage you to consider them, even if you have to pick out some seeds. I have 2 trees, a navel and something that might be a Valencia.  They tend to get ripe at different times and I use them interchangeably.  The navels get sweeter when they are totally ripe but I think the others are more flavorful.

 

I think the heavy-for-size and sniff-test are the best guides although the waxes they use can confound the nose!

[blue_dolphin]

And @Darienne, your orange julep talk has me wanting to make one, too!  I grew up in northern New York in a town with an Orange Julep stand shaped like a giant orange and serving what were probably knock-offs of the Montreal area Orange Juleps.   Always cracked me up to see that enormous orange dusted with snow for much of the year!  

[Darienne]

Well here's my personal recipe...

Per person:

- one whole orange, peel removed, large if you have them...or 3 medium for 2 persons

- 1/4 cup orange juice

- 1/4 cup milk

- a modicum of orange zest...this too will depend upon the orange

- 4 ice cubes

- sweetener if you like or if the oranges are sourish

It all goes into a blender and fits into a 12 oz mug, preferably the dark blue glass ones which our son gave us years ago.   To accompany a large bowl of popcorn.  For DH: salt and melted butter.  For me: salt, pepper, olive oil, ground chipotle and packet of Stevia.

[SylviaLovegren]

3 hours ago, Darienne said:

Well here's my personal recipe...

Per person:

- one whole orange, peel removed, large if you have them...or 3 medium for 2 persons

- 1/4 cup orange juice

- 1/4 cup milk

- a modicum of orange zest...this too will depend upon the orange

- 4 ice cubes

- sweetener if you like or if the oranges are sourish

It all goes into a blender and fits into a 12 oz mug, preferably the dark blue glass ones which our son gave us years ago.   To accompany a large bowl of popcorn.  For DH: salt and melted butter.  For me: salt, pepper, olive oil, ground chipotle and packet of Stevia.

 I've never heard of an Orange Julep.  Is it sort of like an Orange Julius, only with milk instead of egg white and vanilla.  Or a Ontario/upstate NY thing?  Sounds yummy.  The orange doesn't curdle the milk?

[Darienne]

Ooops.  Forgot the small slurp of vanilla.  And no, it doesn't curdle.  Try it. 

I tried an Orange Julius from Dairy Queen last year and thought it was horrible.  A sort of metallic taste...

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Maybe I'm late to the party, but I'm fairly reliable when it comes to picking oranges that aren't flavourless, dry, ugly-inside balls of yuck….  Heavy for its size has been mentioned, but nobody yet has talked about scoring the rinds lightly with your thumbnail (Smithy comes close to this with the sniff test, but this takes it to another level.)  Oranges that are past their prime don't have as much oil in their skins as nice, fresh, tasty ones do - so the smell will be less or absent entirely and it will lack the sparkle of a really good, really fresh orange.  If you're scoring right, you should be able to see a little spray of orange oil depart the rind; those are the good ones - and the bonus is that the scoring test defeats any wax that might have been added at the shipping house.

 

I'll also jump on the "try Valencia" bandwagon - they're not all that seedy (and besides, if you're peeling and cutting to accommodate the blender you'll be able to seed them quite easily) and the flavour is far, far superior to Navels or Washingtons.  If you were down here, I'd also force you to try something called Naranja Hielo, which seem to be made for the express purpose of making Orange Juleps.

[Darienne]

Not too much forcing to get me to try anything you suggest, PanaCan.  I'll always remember your first blog and I so wanted to try all those street foods which you posted about.

[Darienne]

Three years later and many tasteless oranges later also.

 

About a month ago, Ed bought some oranges..'Midnight' from South Africa...and miracle of miracles they were so good, so tasty, so yummy, I could scarcely believe my mouth.  

 

Then last week, he bought another batch of the same.  Tasteless, flat, the usual.  I guess the good ones simply got in there one time by mistake.  And now some lowly worker has been fired from his or her job for allowing tasty oranges to get through the regular practice and now all is normal again with dreadful oranges.  Right.  I am ranting.

[heidih]

I am late to this party but do live in citrus land. Navel for a juice situation - NO!!!  The smoother skinned ones (there are so many) with just a bit of give might be best We used to say Valencia for juice but there are so many now. I like to mix in a tangerine or t-hybrid for extra flavor (think tangelo ones)  I also like starting the squeeze process by the equator cut and fork & twist before using twisty juicer thing. No science reason just experience, 

[dcarch]

My easy method, fail safe.

 

Buy one orange, taste it. If it's good buy more.

 

dcarch

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, dcarch said:

My easy method, fail safe.

 

Buy one orange, taste it. If it's good buy more.

 

dcarch

yep - easiest way I know of.

 

Here in NY we get oranges from Florida, California, and Texas.  I often find the Florida Valencias best for juice, while later in the season, we see some great California navels. 

[kayb]

On 12/20/2015 at 11:10 AM, Darienne said:

Well here's my personal recipe...

Per person:

- one whole orange, peel removed, large if you have them...or 3 medium for 2 persons

- 1/4 cup orange juice

- 1/4 cup milk

- a modicum of orange zest...this too will depend upon the orange

- 4 ice cubes

- sweetener if you like or if the oranges are sourish

It all goes into a blender and fits into a 12 oz mug, preferably the dark blue glass ones which our son gave us years ago.   To accompany a large bowl of popcorn.  For DH: salt and melted butter.  For me: salt, pepper, olive oil, ground chipotle and packet of Stevia.

 

Not a huge buyer of oranges, but damn, that popcorn sounds wonderful!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

8 hours ago, weinoo said:

yep - easiest way I know of.

 

Here in NY we get oranges from Florida, California, and Texas.  I often find the Florida Valencias best for juice, while later in the season, we see some great California navels. 

 

I am a fan of Valencia.  Navel oranges taste vile to me unless eaten out of hand.  I've also recently discovered blood oranges, for which my food budget* hates me.

 

 

*I lie.  I do not have a budget for anything.

 

[liuzhou]

Many market stalls here let you try at least a segment of one before you buy. Small tangerine types, you'll usually get a whole one. Of course, it isn't a 100% guarantee that what you buy will be the same, but usually near enough.

 

Very seldom do you get to try in supermarkets, though. I find sniffing them is a good, if not foolproof plan. The good ones usually smell better, too.

Edited December 10, 2018 by liuzhou (log)

[Smithy]

9 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I am a fan of Valencia.  Navel oranges taste vile to me unless eaten out of hand. 

<snip>

 

 

 

The problem with Navel oranges is that many varieties have an enzyme that breaks the sugars down pretty quickly after cutting. I learned this the hard way when I juiced a bunch for breakfast, an hour or so before we actually ate. Our orange-growing, orange-loving family all tasted and immediately stopped drinking the juice because it was so bitter. My father said, "Honey, don't you remember that?" and gently tweaked me for the mistake. I've had the same problem with using navel orange juice to cook into a sauce.

 

Until a few years ago I thought this was an unvarying rule for Navels, but in recent years I've found a few varieties with juice that holds as well as the Valencias. I haven't worked out which ones. I do know that if I'm going to use Navels in a fruit salad I'd best plan on eating it quickly or adding fresh pineapple, which juices seem to counter the Navel enzymes. 

 

If someone can point me to more information about the chemistry and the varieties involved, I'd love to see it. I've found passing remarks about the newer varieties lacking that enzyme, but nothing definitive. If @russ parsons were still coming by here, he might be able to point me to a UCRiverside article or three.

[Darienne]

On 12/10/2018 at 10:47 AM, Smithy said:

 

The problem with Navel oranges is that many varieties have an enzyme that breaks the sugars down pretty quickly after cutting. I learned this the hard way when I juiced a bunch for breakfast, an hour or so before we actually ate. Our orange-growing, orange-loving family all tasted and immediately stopped drinking the juice because it was so bitter. My father said, "Honey, don't you remember that?" and gently tweaked me for the mistake. I've had the same problem with using navel orange juice to cook into a sauce.

 

Until a few years ago I thought this was an unvarying rule for Navels, but in recent years I've found a few varieties with juice that holds as well as the Valencias. I haven't worked out which ones. I do know that if I'm going to use Navels in a fruit salad I'd best plan on eating it quickly or adding fresh pineapple, which juices seem to counter the Navel enzymes. 

 

If someone can point me to more information about the chemistry and the varieties involved, I'd love to see it. I've found passing remarks about the newer varieties lacking that enzyme, but nothing definitive. If @russ parsons were still coming by here, he might be able to point me to a UCRiverside article or three.

Had no idea of the Navel orange situation.  Fascinating.  Thanks Smithy