When you live on a farm, there is a time of the year for different fruits and vegetables and when there is a bountiful crop, it requires inventiveness on my part to think of as many ways to eat the same thing without getting tired of it.  It is Tangerine Time right now in Southern Belize and basically we have lots of it.  Here in Toledo, anything that is citrus but is not an orange, grapefruit or lime is grouped under the category of “tangerine”.  See below the many faces of the Tangerine:

Now, I am sure there are proper names for each of these including mandarin, tangelo and satsuma but for all intents and purposes it really does not matter, because my exploration on this matter is on the eating of it.  In this blog, I would like to share with you what we have actually been eating in the last 24 hours which have been tangerine-related. Firstly, I would like to introduce the concept of attempting to use the whole fruit for culinary purposes and in this example, the wonders of the zest.  All you need is a sharp knife (we have no zesters in Belize) to get the zest off the citrus.  Try to only get the coloured part off without the pith (the white part) which imparts a bitter taste to the palate.  The zest gives a wonderful, fresh citrus flavour to food.

Last night, we had a meal of venison marinated in tangerine zest (and other things) with sliced tangerine.  Frankly, I don’t have a problem mixing fruit with the main meal because it is a great substitute for carbohydrate.  Plus, you spice up a fruit by adding a bit of black pepper to it.

As an aside regarding venison…I am not trying to be posh about eating, I just happen to have some in the freezer.  The Mayans in the surrounding villages like to hunt game in the dense bush around here and occasionally, they turn up at our front gate with very fresh wild game.  I have no hesitation in snapping up a hind leg whenever I can get my paws on it.

Today, continuing with the same theme,  I baked bread with tangerine zest.  I love the smell of home-baked bread and this one had high notes of tangerine citrus…very aromatic!

For lunch, we had thickly sliced bread with tuna and grated mozzarella.  We also had lots of tangerine to eat with it!

Tonight, we have another tangerine meal in the making!  I am presently marinating minced pork in tangerine juice and zest (with other things) to make burgers.  And of course, we will be eating more of the tangerine zest bread with it.  I am thinking about pan frying some citrus in brown sugar as a side dish.  You will probably get the picture tomorrow.  Incidentally, I also made a tangerine zest Mojito for tonight which I am sipping in between writing this blog.

So far, so good.  We are still enjoying the tangerines!!!

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