[Sca-cooks] Lemons? Limes? Confusion?

[Lilinah]

Kiri wrote:
>And... to add to the confusion, when I lived in Papua New Guinea, off the
>north coast of Australia, we had a citrus fruit that tasted like limes when
>they were green and like lemons when they were yellow (ripe).  I don't
>remember what they were called, but I was quite bemused by them!

Apparently there are a number of citrus that stay green-skinned when 
ripe in the tropics but might turn yellow or orange if grown 
somewhere with slightly cooler weather.

I loved to drink juice of jeruk nipis in Indonesia. The skin is green 
and IIRC (it has been about 30 years) the pulp was sort of yellow 
orange. The taste was like a cross between lemon and lime with a very 
faint hint of orange. Maybe this - or a relative - is the citrus you 
had, Kiri.

The closest i can get to satisfy my longing for jeruk nipis, i buy 
half-gallon boxes of Philippine calamansi juice at the supermarket. 
It tastes like a cross between lemon and lime and tangerine. My 
recollection is that jeruk nipis didn't have a tangerine taste, but 
what the heck, it's a delicious Southeast Asian citrus juice. BTW, 
the juice of calamansi is orange-ish.

Apparently there are a number of citrus varieties native to Australia 
(and i gather from your message in other points east of the Wallace 
Line). Most of those in Australia have an acrid oil that makes them 
not palatable.

Here's a link with some description and photos of jeruk nipis, 
calamansi, and jeruk purut (Indonesian)/makrut (Thai) with is 
unpleasant  and unjuiceable, but whose leaves and grated rind add 
wonderful flavor to cooked dishes.
http://gotouring.com/razzledazzle/fruit/lime.html

Still hoping to hear about SCA-period European lime use...
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

My LibraryThing
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