ANST - origin of oranges

[Stefan li Rous]

Within this past week, I remember correcting someone (Ken Miller?) on the
origins of oranges. I said that I didn't think they had come from China
but rather from the Middle East. It looks like I was wrong in that they 
may have in fact traveled first from China to the Middle East, but well 
before medieval times. It does look like any direct transport from China 
was unknown until very late in our period.

Stefan

> Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 12:42:34 -0800
> From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
> Subject: SC - Citrus Fruit History (long)
> 
> I have just been reading the first chapter of a multi-volume work called
> _The Citrus Industry_, which goes into considerable detail about what the
> evidence is on what citrus fruit came into use when and where. This is a
> summary of its conclusions.
> 
> The author of this chapter, Herbert John Webber, concludes that all citrus
> are native to southern Asia and the Malay Archipelago. Cultivated citrus go
> way back in China; the earliest mention he knows of concerns tribute
> (oranges and pummeloes) given to an emperor around 2200 B.C. A Chinese book
> on oranges written in 1178 A.D. describes some twenty-seven varieties of
> sweet, sour, and mandarin oranges, as well as kumquats and citrons.
> 
> The citron seems to be the first citrus fruit known in the West, having
> become established in Persia by around 500 B.C. and spreading slowly around
> the eastern end of the Mediterranean from there. The Romans of the first
> century A.D probably grew citrons in the southern parts of Italy and knew
> of lemons and sour oranges, although it seems to be debatable whether or
> not they grew them. The collapse of the Roman empire seems to have left
> citrons growing, in part growing wild, in Sicily and southern Italy, and no
> other citrus surviving in Italy.
> 
> The Arabs continued the spread of citrus fruit; by the 10th century the
> sour orange was known and there were references to importing new varieties
> from India, and by the 12th century lemon, sour orange, citron, and pummelo
> had all made it as far as Spain and North Africa. There is also a 12th
> mention of the pummelo in Palestine by a Christian pilgrim, and a
> 13th-century Arab reference to what is probably lime. By the 13th century
> lemon, sour orange, citron, and what is probably lime are described from
> northern Italy.
> 
> The sweet orange is mentioned in a few documents from the second half of
> the 15th century as growing in Italy and southern France, and seems to have
> been fairly widely grown in southern Europe by the early 16th century. In
> 1520 or thereabouts the Portuguese brought a new and superior sweet orange
> variety from China, which then spread around the citrus-growing areas of
> Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Mandarin oranges do not seem to have
> made it to Europe until the early 19th century.
> 
> The pummelo or shaddock, which is a thick-skinned citrus fruit about the
> size of a grapefruit, seems to have followed the same paths across Europe
> and the Arab world as the sour orange and lemon. It was introduced to the
> West Indies by the 17th century; the grapefruit, probably a mutation from
> the shaddock, is first mentioned in 1750 from Barbados.
> 
> Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook

-- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
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