navel oranges

over the years have not been able to get a true ripened navel orange at the store,always a bit green and hard to peel and tart inside,but for the last couple weeks we have been getting easy to peel super sweet oranges to the point of dripping juice,,,

now it might be where we live or somebody screwed up and some government function got our tart oranges

can remember a life time ago mom would bring home 5 lbs bags of ripe navels from the store, always liked having them in my lunchbox, and as time progressed it was very hard to find a ripe one in the store, so stopped buying them pretty much stop buying all citrus then clementines hit the shelf's, still no navels worth buying.
but this years navels have been super...

In winter I try to eat a citrus every day as I can't snack on plant-ripened fruit, berries, or tomatoes when they are not ripe. I gave up on navel oranges years ago and get mandarins if I can find them, clementines if that's all that is available. I've even been known to get oranges or tangerines if that is what I can find. I find a huge difference in the size, ripeness, juiciness, flavor, and ease of peeling of mandarins or other citrus. Brand has some effect but I still get differences in the same brands. The better known brands seem to have better quality control but I still find a difference one bag to another. Usually a bag is pretty consistent.

love a good mandarin or clementine,those are usually good fruit though the winter this year they have been hit or miss more on the miss side.....and they wanted top dollar with small portions..

I love a good juicy orange, whatever the variety. I hit a good deal at the market a few weeks back. They were called "heirloom" oranges and they looked a bit like navels, but they hit the bulls eye for ripeness. Sweet juicy and perfect. And on sale! But like you say, hitting on the good ones seems rare these days.

My best friend in elementary school had a family orange grove and we used to sit under the trees and eat tangerines and oranges and red grapefruit, whatever was in season, until we burst. Good times.

I remember back in the 60's family friends bought a share of a grapefruit orchard. Wonderful tree ripened grapefruit in Texas!! YUM!!

At my parents' home in Cal. , they had an orange tree that produced nice juicy and sweet oranges. Right next to it they had a grapefruit tree that really PRODUCED abundant numbers of grapefruits. Now, they were so sour / bitter that my mother was the only one to ever eat them. After a few gifts to neighbors, they finally said thanks, but no thanks. so, my mom ate one grapefruit per day and everything else ( 5 or more per day ) went into the garbage can.

Rhodie Ranch said:

I remember back in the 60's family friends bought a share of a grapefruit orchard. Wonderful tree ripened grapefruit in Texas!! YUM!!

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in my texas days , always enjoyed taking loads down to mcallen tx always hit the roadside fruit stands on the way home..loved the watermelons and grapefruit, once getting to the other side of austin there was a truck stop and next to it there was a all you can eat texas bbq, thats was some good brisket fill the belly jump into the sleeper grab a couple hours back on the road..yes the days of double logging.cant do that anymore .dang electronic log books

majorcatfish said:

love a good mandarin or clementine,those are usually good fruit though the winter this year they have been hit or miss more on the miss side.....and they wanted top dollar with small portions..

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If you have a fancyish supermarket near you (and can afford them) Dekapons (a.k.a. "Sumo Mandarins) are excellent. My parents love them!

True Minkans (the clementine they used for canned mandarin orange slices) are even better, but almost unobtainable fresh. (look for an extremely tiny very dark orange (nearly red) fruit.)

Mango oranges are an experience if you ever find them; oranges with no acid whatsoever (taste a little like raspberry sugar water.)

There are Sumos at my local store whenever they are in season, I should try some. I have to admit I've avoided trying them because of the high price.
I bet they (the market)would be happy to be called fancyish, LOL.

I never did like Navel oranges, for some of the reasons already stated... they are hit-or-miss in terms of sweetness. It always seems that something other than seeds is lost, when they breed a fruit to be seedless. Navel oranges need to be picked really ripe to be sweet, and store-bought Navels seldom are. I've noticed that there seem to be several strains out there, the thin-skinned ones tend to be the best IMO.

My favorite oranges are still the old-fashioned, seeded Valencia. Unlike the Navels, they can have quite a bit of green on the outside, and still be sweet & juicy inside. Unfortunately, the Valencias have become increasingly hard to find, and seem to be available for a shorter period of time. Just as with apples, the newer varieties are squeezing the older ones off the shelves.

Blood oranges can be really good too; but more often than not, they are under-ripe & sour. I could really learn to like them, if the darker ones were more common & the fruit growers weren't in such a rush to pick them.