On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 719

rich in tannins that it was once used for
tanningleather!Becauseeachfruitletcontains
a prominent seed, pomegranates are usually
processed into juice, which then can be used
as is or cooked down to make a syrup or
“molasses,” or fermented into a wine. True
grenadine is pomegranate juice mixed with a
hot sugar syrup. Today most commercial
grenadines are synthetic. In northern India,
pomegranatefruitletsaredriedandgroundfor
useasanacidifyingpowder.
TheCitrusFamily:Orange,
Lemon,Grapefruit,andRelatives

Citrusfruitsareamongthemostimportantof
alltreefruits.Fromtheirbirthplace
insouthernChina,northernIndia,and
SoutheastAsiatheyspreadthroughoutthe
subtropicsandmildtemperatezonesofthe
world.Ancienttradetookthecitronto
westernAsiaandtheMiddleEastbefore500


BCE,andmedievalcrusadersbroughtsour

orangesbackwiththemtoEurope;Genoese
andPortuguesetradersintroducedsweet
orangesaround1500,andSpanishexplorers
carriedthemtotheAmericas.Today,Brazil
andtheUnitedStatesproducemostofthe
world’soranges.Barelyacenturyago,

orangeswerespecialholidaytreats;now
muchoftheWesternworldstartsitsdaywith
orangejuice.

The fig. It contains small flowers within the
fleshy “fruit,” which is actually the swollen
flower base. The fig is an inverted version of
the strawberry: it surrounds rather than
underliesthetruetinyfruits,orachenes.
Whyarecitrusfruitssopopular?They
offeranunusualsetofvirtues.Aboveall,
theirpeelshavedistinctiveandstrongaromas,