Equinox orange

As the celestial bull tosses the spinning earth from one of its horns to the other at the moment of the vernal (spring) equinox (this year at 18.26 GMT on 20 March), the Nowruz orange, so still in a bowl of clear water, wobbles. The new year has begun and we will find Spring and all its promises. Enjoy more images of Nowruz, the Zoroastrian and Persian New Year on my flickr set of Nowruz photographs and take away a flavour of how it is celebrated.

Orange tree, Rome

Tom took this photo when he came to visit me when I was staying at the British School at Rome last year. The BSR have orange and lemon trees in their courtyard garden (cortile). They were beautiful, but some of the fruit were quite vile. Click on my flickr badge (mosaicing on the right hand side) to see other photos.

Sweet orange, Citrus sinensis. This one here is still on its tree in March, in the centre of Rome, after the rain. The finest marmalade is made from Seville or bitter oranges, pithy and full of large pectin-filled pips, Citrus aurantium. Apparently, oranges are considered to be berries as they hold multiple seeds (pips) and come from a single ovary, but you can read more about that kind of thing at ‘Wikipedia Orange (fruit)’.

About the only annual culinary tradition I have maintained is making marmalade in January. It is getting to that time when the bright Sevilles will appear in our green grocers (those of us who have them, or else from the super-dupermarket), their knarled pock-marked skins begging to be turned into gorgeous, shiney jam. The thick (who’d have thin?) shreds oosing that palette-cleansing bitter-sweetness. It’s like smelting bronze. I use the cut-and-boil method, rather than the boil-the-oranges-whole method. I don’t like the idea of boiling oranges whole. Different sugars and few extra ingredients (brandy, whiskey perhaps?) could be used to vary the ‘original’. I find unrefined sugar the best. Muscavado sugar makes a thinner, darker jam which resembles the fir of a grizzly bear, the orange flecks falling through it light sparks from the sun.

January is a month that remains dark, even though the days are meant to be betting longer. The world doesn’t really yield us much proper light until well into February. It probably doesn’t help that it’s so grey, very grey indeed and then that grey gives into dirty brown in the afternoon/evening. At least that’s what happens where I am at the moment. This is why oranges are so good in January. They are our mini-suns. Go on, have one. Gorgeous.