How to choose and use lemons

Which lemon to choose: large or small, organic or not?

How do I choose a good lemon?

First of all, what do you want to use it for? For juice, the lemons you find in the supermarket are just fine. Most of them are grown in California (with some from Arizona) and are either the Eureka or Lisbon variety, which are difficult to tell apart, even for a lot of lemon growers. Choose a lemon that’s heavy for its size and has a pleasant fragrance. The skin should be bright yellow with no wrinkling. A thinner-skinned lemon will yield more juice, while a thicker-skinned one may be better for zest. Be sure to check that the lemon is not too soft and has no signs of white or green mold. Small blemishes and spots won’t affect the juice.

How do I know if a lemon is ripe? As long as it isn’t rock hard, it’s ripe. Since you don’t buy a lemon for its sweetness, you don’t have to worry about that part.

Small or large? Research indicates that it’s usually a better bargain to buy smaller lemons: you get more juice for your money. It means a little more labor on your part, though.

Lemon watercolor by Cathy Mihalik

Organic or not? If you want to use your lemon for its rind, or zest, it can be worth it to pay more for organic or unwaxed lemons. Be extra careful in choosing organic lemons–since they are not treated with fungicide wax, they are much more susceptible to mold. Look for telltale white or green spores on the lemons, and check any lemons that are nearby, as mold easily spreads from one fruit to the next. Avoid lemons with soft spots. See more about zest below.

Lemon varieties include the golden colored Meyer lemon and the striped Pink Lemonade, the latter mainly used for its decorative value

What about Meyer lemons? Meyer lemons are actually a natural cross between a lemon and an orange, discovered by plant explorer Frank N. Meyer in China in 1908.  They have a delicate floral fragrance and flavor; their skins are thinner and they’re  sweeter, or  less acidic, than a true lemon, as they contain about four times he amount of sugar. That said, they still have a refreshing tang.

Unless you live in California or have a friend with a Meyer lemon tree, you may find them too pricey to use on a regular basis as they don’t transport well and have a limited season. Also,  when you want that tangy acidic kick, you’re better off getting true lemons. But for certain desserts and dishes where you want the rind to be edible, they’re worth paying extra for. I recommend them especially for lemon marmalade.

How should I keep my lemons at home? Store lemons at room temperature, out of the sunlight, for a week or more, unless they are organic lemons — then they should be used within a couple of days or stored in your refrigerator crisper. A bowl of lemons will make your house smell sweet. Keep lemons away from moisture; wash and dry them just before using.

What about substituting bottled lemon juice for fresh lemons?  Don’t do it, except in an emergency. Fresh lemon juice is so much better, plus you can use the lemon zest.  Rather than buying bottled juice, just keep a bowlful of lemons on your table or counter — they will beautify and scent your home and that way you’ll always have fresh lemons available for your recipes. And you can freeze leftover lemon juice in ice cube trays for all the convenience of bottled juice.

Tips on cooking with lemons:

Measuring:

4 to 5 medium lemons = approximately 1 cup of juice

One medium lemon = approximately 1 tablespoon grated peel

The wooden lemon reamer is my favorite hand tool for juicing lemons. Yes, you still have to strain the seeds, but it's brilliantly effective, using the power of one's hand to squeeze out all the juice.

Lemon juice: To increase the amount of juice you can squeeze, the lemon should be room temperature or warmer. If need be, place in hot water for a few minutes. Then roll the lemon firmly on the counter-top with the pressure of your palm until it feels softened. Lemons will become juicier with this method as the membranes inside start to break down, releasing the juice more easily. I’ve also read that microwaving a lemon for 15 seconds will release more of its juice (I haven’t tried this).

Two types of lemon squeezers that strain juice. I found the one on the left in Amsterdam; the one on the right at Campo di Fiori in Rome.

Cooking: Always use nonreactive cookware with lemon juice, avoiding aluminum, uncoated cast iron or copper. It’s best to add lemon juice to dishes after they’ve been cooked to retain vitamin C and for the freshest brightening flavor.

• Fresh lemon juice can be used in place of vinegar in many recipes and is excellent with oil as a salad dressing.
• Lemon juice is also excellent in marinades as it tenderizes meat.
• Using a teaspoon of lemon juice in place of ice water in a pie crust will add to its tenderness.
• Perk up wilted lettuce or tired vegetables by soaking them in a big bowl of cold water with a teaspoon of lemon juice for half an hour.
• Add a squeeze of lemon juice to the water when poaching eggs to keep the whites together.
• Lemon juice can be used to prevent artichokes or cut fruits, such as apples,  from turning brown (oxidizing)
• Add half a lemon to the cooking water when you’re cooking cauliflower and it will stay white. Or add lemon juice to cooked purple cauliflower and observe a startling color change to fuchsia:
  • However, when you want cooked green beans to stay bright green, don’t add lemon juice until right before serving or they’ll turn an olive color. A good way to add lemon flavor to a dressing for green beans while preserving their color is to use the zest.

Lemon zest: When a recipe calls for zest, try to use unwaxed or organic lemons. Most grocery store lemons are waxed. If you cannot use these, then blanch the lemon in boiling water for a minute to loosen the wax, and scrub the skin well before grating.

A Microplane grater, based on a rasp design, will give you finely grated zest; a lemon zester produces slightly longer threads of zest, or you can use a sharp vegetable peeler to peel strips, then finely chop. Be sure to grate or peel only the yellow part of the skin, not the white part beneath, which can be bitter.

My favorite of these methods is the Microplane — it’s easy to use and the fine zest gives intense flavor. I add freshly grated lemon zest to many baked goods — scones, cakes, muffins, pies — as well as to pasta and rice dishes, salads, tuna salads, fish, chicken, and much more.

I often travel with a Microplane zester and a lemon reamer.

Preserving juice and zest: Lemon juice can be frozen in small containers or in ice cube trays. Lemon cubes can be added to lemonade or thawed to use in a recipe. Lemon zest can also be frozen, wrapped in small packets of plastic wrap or aluminum foil. You can also add strips of lemon peel to a jar of sugar to use for baking.

Classic lemon juicers: the wooden one on the left is an early American model, which was not very effective

Recipes

You can find lemon recipes on the pages above in these categories:

Antique recipes include 12th century preserved lemons, Limuniya from the Middle Ages, A Lemon Sallet from 1653, a Lemon Pudding from 1747 and Shaker Lemon Pie from the 1800s.

Savories include Avgolemeno (Greek lemon-egg soup), Lebanese lemony lentil soup, ceviche, roast chicken with lemons, slow roast chicken (pieces) with garlic and lemon, chicken piccata, , lemon basil linguine, lemon risotto and tuna-lemon-green bean salad.

Sweets include lemon curd, French lemon tart, lemon meringue pie, S-cookies, Rachel’s lemon squares, granita di limone, Meyer lemon marmalade and candied citrus peels.

Lemonade — I think this is self-explanatory!

Lemon orchard tour

Last week, during our annual December trip to Southern California, Steve and I visited our lemon-grower friends in Ventura County, Bob and Sally Grether.

Bob and Sally live on property that Bob's father, an immigrant from Germany, bought in the early 1900s.

First they invited us to lunch. Mexican food (tamales, enchiladas, rice and refried beans) from a renowned little place in nearby Somis.

Bob shows us a block of lemon trees planted two years ago.

Then we climb into Bob’s Ford pickup (he always has a late model Ford pickup) and visit various blocks of lemon trees, stopping along the way for some picking.

I'm amazed that the lemons smell so good. "That's because they're fresh off the tree," Bob says. "The ones you get in the store might be six months old!"

For the fresh market, pickers use clippers to clip the lemons off the tree. But since we’re just picking a few for us to take home, we’re picking them without the clippers.

Even though the tree is full of mature lemons, there are also blooms and buds. Lemon trees in this region of California actually bear fruit all year long, a continual cycle of life defying the idea of seasons. Lemons are harvested four or five—even six—times a year here.

These mature lemons are on the same tree as the blooms. They have a green tinge but they’re ready to pick — since lemons are supposed to be sour, you don’t have to wait for sugar to develop. In the packing house, they’ll turn yellow before they’re sold to grocery stores or restaurants.

Meyer lemons are a little more rounded than the common lemon and have a golden color.

Bob said that Grether Farming Co., which sells through Sunkist, is planting a lot of Meyer lemons these days.  “Chefs love ‘em,” he says. The Meyer lemon is a natural hybrid of orange and lemon which was discovered by agricultural explorer Frank N. Meyer in China in 1908.

Row crops, especially berries, have replaced many of the citrus orchards near Grether Farming Co.'s orchards.

“They call this Walnut Avenue because there used to be walnut trees here, “ Bob says. “But in my lifetime, it could have been called Lima Bean Avenue and Lemon Avenue. And after I’m gone, it could well be Strawberry Lane.”

A gift of fresh strawberries was an atypical part of the lemon orchard tour

As we passed a strawberry field adjacent to a lemon orchard, the man on the left waved us down and offered us some strawberries. They were swollen from a recent rain and wouldn’t keep long enough to sell. They were tasty!

We're heading back to the house -- but first, Bob has some citrus specialties to show us.

The peel of Bergamot orange is used for its scent in perfumes, and is also the flavoring in Earl Grey tea.

Buddha's Hand citrons have finger-like lobes, which when pressed together, resemble a hand in prayer. They are used as religious offerings on altars in China and Japan.

The last part of our lemon tour always takes us to the citron tree. Citron is a lemon ancestor which lacks juice but has a wonderful fragrance. Most citrons look like large bumpy-skinned lemons, but the Buddha’s Hand, with its segmented fingers, is an  eccentric variety.

Steve chose out a few smaller ones for us to take home.

The scent of the Buddha’s Hand is said to evoke happiness.

They’re also used as a decoration. I think they did a lot to brighten up the  table in our room at Motel 6!

We did take home a lot of lemons! One can never have too many....

From 12th century Egypt, lemons preserved

In 12th-century Egypt,  a doctor named Ibn Jumay stood outside his clinic, watching a funeral bier carrying a cloth-covered body  pass by on the way to the burial site.

Something was not right. The feet poking out beyond the burial shroud were not flat but upright. Ibn Jumay knew that was a sure sign of life.

Sure enough, the man heading for burial was not dead. Rather, he was suffering from a cataleptic attack, a condition causing muscular rigidity and the appearance of death.

After Ibn Jumay revived him, many people thought the doctor had not only saved the man from being buried alive but had actually brought a dead man back to life! As you can imagine, Ibn Jumay’s reputation grew to mythic proportions.

I couldn't find any pictures of Ibn Jumay, but he might have looked somewhat like his more famous colleague, Maimonides, pictured here. Both were physicians to the Egyptian sultan, Saladin.

So what does this have to do with lemons?

Well, besides being one of the more famous physicians of his time and writing a frequently consulted medical compendium, Ibn Jumay wrote “On Lemon, its Drinking and Use,” the oldest and longest lasting homage to lemons. It was a kind of medical cookbook, recommending various parts and preparations of lemon for restoring health.

And it included the first known published recipe for preserved lemons, which, it’s been said,  “all subsequent writers have copied.”

The 12th century instructions for cutting and salting lemons and letting them ferment for weeks are virtually the same as found in modern cookbooks, such as those by the great Mediterranean-food experts, Claudia Roden and Paula Wolfert.

After washing four lemons, cut each one into quarters end to end, but not the whole way through, so the pieces are still attatched at the ends.

• Stuff each opening with plenty of salt, and put the lemons in a glass jar, squashing them together with a wooden spoon. Add fresh lemon juice from another 4 or 5 lemons (it should nearly cover the salted lemons).
• Cover the jar tightly and let the lemons ripen at room temperature for 30 days, shaking the jar each day to redistribute the salt and juice. (In a few days, the salt will draw out enough juice to cover the lemons).

As the lemons ferment, the growth of bacteria and yeasts softens their rinds and changes the aroma from bright and sharp to rich and rounded. Preserved lemons lend a fine perfume to distinctive savory dishes of the Middle East and North Africa. They’re also great chopped up in a tuna salad or spinach salad….

Usually only the skin of preserved lemons is eaten; the pulp is scooped out and thrown away. Paula Wolfert has this to say about using preserved lemons:

Always rinse the lemons before using to remove any excess salt and use sparingly in cooking–the flavor of preserved lemons is very intense and a little goes a long way.

Put a smaller lid on top of the lemons to keep them under the water

Claudia Roden has a quicker way to make preserved lemons, by boiling them in brine. She says this “unorthodox” method gives good results in 4 days and the lemons last for months. You make 8 superficial vertical incisions into the lemon skin,  then put the lemons in a pan of salted water (8 tablespoons salt for 8 lemons) to cover.
With a smaller lid on top to keep the lemons from floating to the top, boil for about 25 minutes, or until the peels are very soft. When cool enough to handle, scoop out the flesh, pack the skins in a glass jar and cover with olive oil or vegetable oil.

Ready to use in just four days. I keep them in the fridge.  Hmmm, I think I should have made more.

Taste of the Middle East

Almost fourteen hundred years ago, Arabs discovered lemons in India and Persia and fell in love with their fragrance and flavor. The Persian limoo became the Arabic laimun, and every part of the lemon was used, from leaves and wood to flowers, fruit and skin. They shredded fragrant citrus twigs for toothbrushes and extracted essential oil from lemon rinds for soaps and perfumes.

For cooking, the lemons were preserved in brine, sweetened for syrups, candy and lemonade, or used as fresh juice to season meat, chicken or fish.

That passion for lemons remains today, in the classic flavors of Middle Eastern cuisine.

Lemons are an essential flavor of Middle Eastern cooking

Claudia Roden, in The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, gives a recipe for a famous vegetarian Lebanese soup called Shorbet Adds bil Hamud, which she translates as “Lemony Spinach and Brown Lentil Soup.”

I’ve made it often as it’s simple, quick and healthy. Lentils and potatoes make it hearty, and barely cooked spinach plus lots of lemon juice give it color and spirit. I sometimes substitute chard or kale for the spinach (and often use less than a pound), cutting the greens and letting them cook briefly in the soup, rather in a separate pot as Roden instructs. Also, sometimes I add a little cumin.

Lemony Lentil Soup

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 cup large brown or green lentils, washed
• 2 medium potatoes, diced
• 2 quarts water or chicken stock
• 1 pound fresh spinach or frozen leaf spinach, defrosted
• ¼ cup chopped cilantro
• Salt and pepper
• Juice of 1 ½ lemons, or more

In a large pan, sauté the onions until soft and golden. Add the garlic and stir until it begins to color. Add the lentils and potatoes, and the water or stock and simmer for 25 minutes, or until the lentils are tender.

If using fresh spinach, wash the leaves and put them in a pan with the lid on—and only the water that clings to them—over low heat until the leaves collapse into a soft mass. Cut the cooked fresh or defrosted frozen spinach into thin ribbons.

Add the spinach and cilantro to the soup and season with salt and pepper. Stir well and add water, if necessary, if you wish a lighter consistency.

Cook a few minutes more and add lemons to taste (it should be nice and tangy) before serving.

Variation: For an alternative flavoring, fry 4 or 5 crushed garlic cloves in 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil with 2 teaspoons ground coriander until the aroma rises. Stir this sauce, called takelya, into the soup just before serving.

Thanks, Columbus (for citrus, that is)

Columbus is a controversial figure and you can say what you like about him–but one thing he did right was to bring citrus, as well as a lot of other good foods, to the New World. (The food exchange went the other way too, and it was only after Columbus that Italians ate tomatoes.)

There are no native species of citrus in the Americas, and it was unknown until Columbus brought lemon, orange and citron seeds he had collected from the Canary Islands to Haiti on his second voyage in 1493.

The climate was so favorable that the orchards swelled into citrus forests within a few generations. And in 1565, the first citrus was brought to the U.S., to St. Augustine, Florida.

I’m having some lemonade on Columbus Day in appreciation of one good thing Columbus did.

Of origins divine…

So, where does the lemon come from?

It’s an ancient fruit, yet it is also a hybrid. Botanists calculate that citrus probably originated more than 20 million years ago, and that only three types of citrus –citron, mandarin and pummelo—are naturally occurring species. All the rest are hybrids.

The lemon’s most direct ancestor is the citron.

"“Its fruit is not edible,” wrote the Greek philosopher and botanist Theophrastus of the citron, “but it has an exquisite odor.”

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The citron’s origins are mysterious, but it probably began as a wild species in Northern India. A Hindu religious text from before 800 B.C. is the earliest written reference to it, and it was the first citrus to be cultivated in Europe.

Perhaps because of its divine scent, the citron has always been associated with the spiritual and the sacred.

In antiquity, Jews adopted the citron, or esrog, as an essential symbol of their religious practice during Sukkos, the harvest festival.

"Uprooted, in exile, the Jews came to see this heart-shaped fruit as a tangible natural symbol of a people and their persistence, their wanderings and their resilience."

So the Jews, who required fresh citrons to fulfill the Biblical commandment  of the holiday, became citron farmers.  And after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, exiled Jews dispersed through the Roman Empire, planting some of the world’s earliest citrus orchards around the Mediterranean.

A nylon bag is tied around each baby citron during the growing period, to protect it from sunburn, wind scuffs and insect damage.

Today citrons for Jewish observance during the fall festival of Sukkos are grown to exacting standards. The fruit must be grown from trees that are not grafted, and an acceptable esrog may have no blemishes.

I received my esrog as an extraordinary gift from John and Shirley Kirkpatrick, who grow them in California. It was packed in a special foam insert to protect it. In the past, citrons were packed in flax to be shipped to Jews in northern countries.

Most of the citrons for ritual use are grown in Israel, but some are also grown in Italy, the Greek islands, Morocco, Yemen–and California. You can learn more about the varieties, or order an esrog, from Zaide Reuven’s Esrog Farm.

Not for fresh eating. The flesh of the citron is dry and bitter. Citron rind is sometimes candied, used in fruitcake and other baked goods.

Traditionally, after the holiday, the citron (or esrog) was given to the women and was said to aid fertility and childbirth. My grandmother soaked the citron peel for days to decrease its bitterness and made it into a golden marmalade, which she gave to postpartum mothers to help them recover their strength.

Here’s an article I wrote about citrons and citron growing for Reform Judaism Magazine.

Buddha's Hand Citron, a variety with finger-like lobes shown here with other citrus varieties, is also used as a religious symbol.

Buddhists embraced the Buddha’s Hand Citron–so named because when the fingers press together, it resembles a hand in prayer–after this variety reached China in the fourth century.

In China and Japan, Buddha’s Hand Citrons are cherished as religious offerings for household or temple altars.

Their scent is said to evoke happiness.

How did the lemon get such a bad rap?

Mario di Paolo's "lemon" truck

I hear a lot of lemon jokes, and apparently so does Mario di Paolo, of Mario’s Lemonade in Chicago.

So how did “a lemon” come to mean something undesirable or defective–like a junker car?

Some people say it’s because the lemon is sour — yet that’s exactly the quality that cooks were looking for when they paid exorbitant prices for lemons imported from Sicily.

“We buy a lemon precisely for its endlessly useful acid juice; we would be very annoyed to find it sweet inside…. A modern kitchen without a lemon in it is gravely ill-equipped.

— Margaret Visser, Much Depends on Dinner

I have a theory about why this derogatory usage developed in the U.S. in the early 1900s. At the time, it was nearly impossible to find a decent American-grown lemon.

In Florida, the lemon industry had collapsed after a disastrous freeze in the mid-1890s — and California’s early lemon farmers had a lot to learn about growing, storing and packing lemons.

In 1899, an authority said many California lemons were “deficient in acid, and full of bitterness, prone to decay…”

The lemon is a natural marvel of packaging. Its thick skin cushions the fruit from damage and keeps the flesh inside fresh and juicy– but only when it’s handled with care and stored in the right conditions.

In the early 1900s, few California growers knew how to do this. Eastern fruit merchants complained that California lemons were carelessly packed and weren’t fresh when they arrived. Even buyers in Los Angeles and San Francisco shunned the local lemons and paid exorbitant prices for the superior  Sicilian imports.

Around 1900, most Americans preferred lemons from Sicily to the homegrown variety

Consider this: In 1900, 70 percent of lemons consumed in U.S and Canada were imported.

So it seems that American lemons of the early 1900s deserved the defective label. But beginning with C.C. Teague of Limoneira Company in Santa Paula (who helped start and develop the growers’ cooperative that became Sunkist), California growers soon caught up to the standards of imported lemons — and Americans have had little reason to be disappointed with them ever since.

Now, if only we could stop using the term “lemon” to describe defective goods!