The most popular of the citrus fruits exists in two species: Citrus aurantium and C. sinensis. The former is the bitter (or Seville) orange and the latter comprises the vast range of sweet oranges, for eating out of hand or turning into juice. Their wild ancestors are thought to have grown in the region of SW China and NW India, but the growing of cultivated varieties has in modern times become concentrated in the Americas, where Brazil and the USA between them account for over two-thirds of world production.
Oranges seem to have been first used for the fragrance of their rind. They were valued as perfume or flavouring, and early Chinese documents mention them being held in the hand so that the warmth released their scent. Although the earliest oranges eaten in China seem to have been mandarin oranges, it does seem clear that some cultivation of ordinary sweet oranges began in the south several millennia ago.
During the first centuries of the Christian era the orange began to spread beyond China, as the citron had done earlier. It reached Japan well before the earliest surviving Japanese literature was written (the 8th century), but it has always been less important there than fruits of the mandarin type. It also reached India in early times: a medical treatise of about ad 100, the Charaka Samhita, mentions it for the first time by what was to become its modern name, ‘naranga’. This word is said to be derived from an older Sanskrit term narunga (fruit like elephants). ‘Naranga’ became naranj in Persian and Arabic, narantsion in late classical Greek, and aurantium (influenced by aurum, ‘gold’) in Late Latin, from which it is only a short step to the Italian arancia and French and English ‘orange’.
However, the various questions which attend the etymology and the westward movement of the orange are complicated by the fact that it was the sour orange which first travelled westwards, with the sweet orange only following about 500 years later. The sour orange was apparently being grown in Sicily at the beginning of the 11th century and around Seville in Spain at the end of the 12th century, no doubt because the Arabs had introduced the fruit to these places. The sweet orange turns up in the Mediterranean area in the latter part of the 15th century. However, it is not always easy to know, from the common names then in use, which sort of orange was meant.
The earliest surviving description of the bitter orange in Europe was by the 13th-century writer Albertus Magnus, who called it ‘arangus’. (Another name was ‘bigarade’, derived from Arabic. Bitter orange juice was used as a flavouring.)
The first mention of the sweet orange in Europe is sometimes said to be that in the archives of the Italian city of Savona, in 1471. Probably the seeds had come through the Genoese trade route, which had extensive connections with the Near East. However, Platina (1475, but having prepared his work in manuscript in the preceding decade) provides a better starting point. He says that sweet oranges ‘are almost always suitable for the stomach as a first course and the tart ones may be sweetened with sugar’; which shows clearly that he knew both kinds.
Shortly after the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama returned from India after his discovery of the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope, in 1498, the Portuguese began to grow a superior kind of sweet orange which was said to be a direct import from ‘China’—a vague designation which however came to be adopted as meaning the sweet orange. Thus the ‘China’ oranges which were an expensive delicacy in Britain from the late 16th century on were in fact from Portugal. And this Portuguese orange spread through S. Europe. The modern Greek for orange is still portokáli.
The orange arrived in the New World with Columbus, who took seeds of both kinds of orange (and of lemon, citron, and lime) to Haiti on his second voyage in 1493. The climate of the Caribbean proved ideal, as did that of the adjacent mainland. It is possible that in 1509 an early Spanish settlement in Darien (Panama) had oranges. More certainly, at some time before 1565 (when the first permanent Spanish colony in Florida, San Agostino, was established), early settlers planted oranges and started what was to be the enormous Florida citrus industry. The rival California industry did not begin until 1739, when missionaries began to grow oranges in lower California (the part now in Mexico). The first oranges in the northern (now USA) part arrived 28 years later.
Orange cultivation was subsequently established in many other parts of the world, e.g. southern Africa (1654), Australia (first seeds planted in New South Wales in 1788), and Israel (where the industry became really important after the emergence of the Jaffa orange in the latter part of the 19th century and the introduction of the late Valencia from the USA in the 20th century).
There are now six main categories of orange in cultivation.
Common sweet oranges exist in numerous varieties. Saunt (1990) explains that Valencia, the most important variety of all, is not an old Spanish one, as might be supposed, but ‘first became of interest in the Azores and is almost certainly of old Portuguese origin’. It seems that it was sent from the Azores in the early 1860s to Thomas Rivers at Sawbridgeworth in England, who first named it Excelsior and sent it to the USA where it was renamed several times, finishing up as Valencia Late—this because a Spanish citrus expert visiting California thought it closely similar to a late-maturing variety grown in Valencia in Spain. This variety leads production in both California and Florida and in many of the main orange-growing countries, but not in Spain itself. Oranges of this variety have a thin rind, not difficult to peel at maturity, plenty of juice of a good colour, and usually two to four seeds.
Other varieties include Pera (important in Brazil) and Jaffa or Shamouti. The latter originated near Jaffa (then in Palestine, now in Israel) in the mid-19th century as a bud mutation on a local Beladi tree. Jaffa oranges have a very fine flavour and are almost seedless. Picked at full maturity, they keep very well. Jaffas are grown also in Cyprus and Turkey, but production declined somewhat towards the end of the 20th century.
Blood oranges are grown mostly in Mediterranean countries, especially Italy. The original mutation which produced the colour probably arose in the 17th century in Sicily. The earliest blood oranges were small and seedy but the better varieties which followed, notably Sanguinello, attracted international esteem. The best modern varieties include the round early-season Moro and the mid-season Tarocco (named for its resemblance to a child's toy top and renowned for its delicate flesh and well-balanced flavour). Sicily, especially the area around Catania, remains the best place for these oranges. A combination of cold winter nights and mild days favours the development of anthocyanins, the red pigments which give blood oranges their distinctive deep red colour. Connoisseurs of citrus fruits consider these oranges to be among the world's finest dessert oranges.
Navel oranges are unmistakable. Each has a rudimentary ‘baby’ fruit embedded in its apex. These oranges mature early, are typically large and seedless and easy to peel, and have a rich flavour which places them in the first ranks of dessert oranges. They thrive especially in subtropical climates such as the Mediterranean and are grown extensively in Spain, Morocco, Turkey, S. Africa, and Australia as well as California in N. America and Uruguay and Argentina in S. America.
As for the origin of navel oranges, Saunt (1990) explains that:
For some time it was widely believed that the navel orange originated as a limb sport near Bahia (now Salvador), Brazil, some time prior to 1822. There is now much evidence to disprove this theory, for navel oranges are known to have grown in Spain and Portugal for many years prior to 1822, and it seems more likely that they were first brought to Portugal from China and thence to Brazil much earlier than this.
It was certainly a Brazilian navel orange, called Bahia, which was introduced to the USA in 1870 to fill the need for a good early variety. Navels are seedless and can be propagated only by cuttings, so twelve young Brazilian trees were imported in tubs by the US Department of Agriculture in Washington. From here they were distributed among leading growers in California and Florida, thus acquiring the name ‘Washington Navel’. The variety is now called either Bahia or Washington.
Acidless oranges, or sugar oranges, are another freak variety which enjoys a small popularity in Brazil, N. America, and Italy. They are almost without acid and therefore insipid in flavour.
Bitter oranges, C. aurantia, have declined in importance. They are grown mainly in Spain (hence ‘Seville’ oranges), and the bulk of the crop is exported to Britain where it is made into marmalade. Only bitter oranges can be used to make proper marmalade, which depends not only on their bitterness but also on the aromatic rind, which is quite different from that of the sweet orange.
These oranges have some uses as an acid element in cookery, especially in those areas where they are cultivated, including the Mediterranean. The dried rind is used to give its aroma to various savoury dishes.
As with nearly all fruits, the flavour of a freshly picked orange is far better than that of a commercial grower's product. Modern oranges are robust and do not spoil quickly, a fact which unfortunately is exploited. An orange may undergo cleaning with detergent; ‘degreening’ with ethylene gas—which removes green but leaves the orange pale yellow, so that it has to be coated with orange dye; wax polishing to reduce moisture loss; and a long time in refrigerated storage before it reaches its eventual buyer.
The wax polish which nearly all oranges have on their skin has been described as harmful to health by several authorities, who recommend that orange rind should not be eaten, even after scrubbing. (Seville oranges, fortunately for domestic marmalade-makers, are left unpolished.)
The uses of bitter oranges have already been mentioned. Sweet oranges can be used to advantage in salads and sweet dishes, and generally for imparting a sweet orange flavour.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Saunt, James (1990), Citrus Varieties of the World, Norwich: Sinclair International.
