Wow! I never knew this was a thing, so thank you Jayne for enlightening me. I plead guilty as charged to happily eating oranges and clementines on public transport without so much as a thought for orangaphobes!
I did work with someone who had the same response to bananas which was tricky and for me celery is the devils food, I can taste it in salads even when I’ve picked every little piece out, just where it’s touched other ingredients, but I can cope with others eating it and it’s not as bad cooked in stews. Another friend has the same problem with eggs… more inconvenient !
I sympathise with the celery thing - it's not my favourite (though I do like it in a soup or stew), and I completely understand your need to get it off your plate. Next time you peel an orange on a train (clementines/mandarins are nowhere near as bad in terms of smell, though I wouldn't go near one if you paid me), if you see a woman running for the hills, that'll be me.
Jayne, how did I not know this about you? I'm half with you in that I hate oranges in a savoury context. They just overwhelm everything else. But in juice or cakes, lovely. (Sorry.)
I have tried to keep being an orangephone under wraps, but decided to come out!! Can you believe I lived in Antalya province for so long? The whole of the south-west coast of Turkey is basically one super-sized orange grove (well, a few pomegranates and peaches, and quite a lot of peppers and tomatoes as well), and the province's symbol is the orange. We have a film festival called the orange festival. All of our shade trees in the main street of our town centre are Seville oranges and we have several of them in our garden. I do have to say that the smell of the bitter oranges is nowhere near as bad as the sweet varieties, and I do use the many kilos of fruit from our Seville trees to make marmalade for the cat & dog charity shop to sell to expats and tourists pining for the good stuff, so all is not lost. Glad to have found another (semi) orange-hater - I think I am definitely in a minority. My former flatmates used to test me by buying things where the ingredients list said 1% orange or similar - usually, by the time they'd taken off the lid or wrapping, I'd be gagging in the next room - I think the smell is a real trigger for something. I am being absolutely serious here - if I am trapped in a room with the smell, I develop a violent headache fairly quickly. Robin's daughter-in-law is a CBT practitioner and she's fairly convinced that I'm probably deeply allergic/intolerant in some way, so even if I were ever tempted to eat one (and there is more likelihood of a frosty day happening in July in Antalya), then I probably wouldn't.
Interesting that you have such a physical reaction to even the smell. Never heard of that with oranges! Good for you unveiling your true orangephobe identity. Let it all hang out, I say 😂
Now, advice please: I have 584g of grapefruits, two rock-hard lemons, and no limes and no hope of finding any. Will this combination work? Should I use just grapefruit instead? And finally, to be the bane of all recipe writers, can I use less sugar?
Morning Mela. Yes, absolutely, grapefruit and lemon is a great combo. Weigh all the fruit and scale up the sugar and water accordingly. No to reducing the sugar - changing the proportions will affect the set, and you need the sugar to stop the marmalade going mouldy. Also, it is already bitter because it contains all the pith, so the flavour wouldn't be good. It's quite strong tasting, so you only need a teaspoon or so on a slice of toast, so the sugar intake will be negligible. (Though it's possible that *some of us* lather on their marmalade with a trowel).🤣🍋
Wow! I never knew this was a thing, so thank you Jayne for enlightening me. I plead guilty as charged to happily eating oranges and clementines on public transport without so much as a thought for orangaphobes!
I did work with someone who had the same response to bananas which was tricky and for me celery is the devils food, I can taste it in salads even when I’ve picked every little piece out, just where it’s touched other ingredients, but I can cope with others eating it and it’s not as bad cooked in stews. Another friend has the same problem with eggs… more inconvenient !
I sympathise with the celery thing - it's not my favourite (though I do like it in a soup or stew), and I completely understand your need to get it off your plate. Next time you peel an orange on a train (clementines/mandarins are nowhere near as bad in terms of smell, though I wouldn't go near one if you paid me), if you see a woman running for the hills, that'll be me.
Jayne, how did I not know this about you? I'm half with you in that I hate oranges in a savoury context. They just overwhelm everything else. But in juice or cakes, lovely. (Sorry.)
Orangephone?? That would be orangephobe. Oh dear. I can't even blame predictive text because I'm on the laptop.
I have tried to keep being an orangephone under wraps, but decided to come out!! Can you believe I lived in Antalya province for so long? The whole of the south-west coast of Turkey is basically one super-sized orange grove (well, a few pomegranates and peaches, and quite a lot of peppers and tomatoes as well), and the province's symbol is the orange. We have a film festival called the orange festival. All of our shade trees in the main street of our town centre are Seville oranges and we have several of them in our garden. I do have to say that the smell of the bitter oranges is nowhere near as bad as the sweet varieties, and I do use the many kilos of fruit from our Seville trees to make marmalade for the cat & dog charity shop to sell to expats and tourists pining for the good stuff, so all is not lost. Glad to have found another (semi) orange-hater - I think I am definitely in a minority. My former flatmates used to test me by buying things where the ingredients list said 1% orange or similar - usually, by the time they'd taken off the lid or wrapping, I'd be gagging in the next room - I think the smell is a real trigger for something. I am being absolutely serious here - if I am trapped in a room with the smell, I develop a violent headache fairly quickly. Robin's daughter-in-law is a CBT practitioner and she's fairly convinced that I'm probably deeply allergic/intolerant in some way, so even if I were ever tempted to eat one (and there is more likelihood of a frosty day happening in July in Antalya), then I probably wouldn't.
Interesting that you have such a physical reaction to even the smell. Never heard of that with oranges! Good for you unveiling your true orangephobe identity. Let it all hang out, I say 😂
Oh so good that you're posting this!
Now, advice please: I have 584g of grapefruits, two rock-hard lemons, and no limes and no hope of finding any. Will this combination work? Should I use just grapefruit instead? And finally, to be the bane of all recipe writers, can I use less sugar?
Morning Mela. Yes, absolutely, grapefruit and lemon is a great combo. Weigh all the fruit and scale up the sugar and water accordingly. No to reducing the sugar - changing the proportions will affect the set, and you need the sugar to stop the marmalade going mouldy. Also, it is already bitter because it contains all the pith, so the flavour wouldn't be good. It's quite strong tasting, so you only need a teaspoon or so on a slice of toast, so the sugar intake will be negligible. (Though it's possible that *some of us* lather on their marmalade with a trowel).🤣🍋