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Strange Fruit, Strange Girl
Sep. 1st, 2007 07:54 amSometimes friends or family will say that what they notice (sometimes even *like*) about me is how obsessed I get when I'm interested in something...well, specifically something esoteric. So the other day I'm listening to KPFA interview an author and he mentions a type of citrus popular in Japanese cuisine called Yuzu. Now, I don't actually like Japanese cuisine. And I vastly prefer sweet citrus to sour/bitter citrus. But the idea that this fruit is actually hard to obtain fresh in the U.S. is intriguing to me.
I have spent the past couple years redoing the landscaping at this house to be an edible landscape. (I'm hoping to make it permacultural, too, but that's a longer process.) I am using mostly standard size citrus as a privacy screen because just about anyone can see into my yard. As long as I'm going to be planting tall trees, I might as well get fruit out of it. Yet the unusual frosts this year killed a couple of the young trees and I have the opportunity to replace them with the same or different varieties.
I've got Improved Meyer Lemon, Moro Blood Orange, Trovita Orange, Washington Navel Orange, Bearss Lime, Dancy Tangerine, Owari Satsuma Mandarin, Chinotto Orange, and Dwarf Variegated Calamondin. The frost killed a Dwarf Tavares Limequat, an Improved Meyer Lemon and an Oro Blanco Grapefruit. And possibly another citrus I'm forgetting. So, anyway, I could conceivably plant Yuzu now that I know of it.
So I start Googling and using Davesgarden.com and talking to people on the NAFEX list and people in CRFG. What I've found out so far is that it is available in the States but not at all common. There's a grower in Oregon but they can't ship to CA. (California has really strict agricultural interdictions around crop plants. In this case, they're trying to avoid citrus virus.) Strike one. But someone on the NAFEX list says some of the larger SoCal nurseries carry it. And someone in CRFG says that Menlo Growers might have it although it's extremely frustrating that Menlo Growers doesn't have a website so I can't find out right now. Then it turns out that someone in CRFG has grafted Yuzu onto one of their citrus trees and would be willing to give me some budwood. But, of course, that would mean I'd have to learn something about t-budding. Which I've been chickenshit about doing. I don't think any of the t-budding I did with peach scions took successfully.
Before I found some local leads, I was getting close to asking a Japanese acquaintance if he could bring a small plant back for me from Japan. :)
I can get crazy about this stuff. Will I eat the Yuzu myself? Well, I'll certainly try it. But I doubt it would be something I'd use a lot. I'd try to use the fruit for trading or sell it to local gourmet cooks (or barter it to them for some of their wares). But do I *need* it? No. I'm even cash poor right now because the insurance company is doing their usual deny, deny, deny, reduce and repeat regarding my temporarily disability insurance (and, yes, it hurts to type all this...)
Still, telling me that a certain useful plant is hard to get or is banned actually makes me that much more interested in having it. I get that way about out-of-print media as well. Suddenly I have to have it NOW.
I have spent the past couple years redoing the landscaping at this house to be an edible landscape. (I'm hoping to make it permacultural, too, but that's a longer process.) I am using mostly standard size citrus as a privacy screen because just about anyone can see into my yard. As long as I'm going to be planting tall trees, I might as well get fruit out of it. Yet the unusual frosts this year killed a couple of the young trees and I have the opportunity to replace them with the same or different varieties.
I've got Improved Meyer Lemon, Moro Blood Orange, Trovita Orange, Washington Navel Orange, Bearss Lime, Dancy Tangerine, Owari Satsuma Mandarin, Chinotto Orange, and Dwarf Variegated Calamondin. The frost killed a Dwarf Tavares Limequat, an Improved Meyer Lemon and an Oro Blanco Grapefruit. And possibly another citrus I'm forgetting. So, anyway, I could conceivably plant Yuzu now that I know of it.
So I start Googling and using Davesgarden.com and talking to people on the NAFEX list and people in CRFG. What I've found out so far is that it is available in the States but not at all common. There's a grower in Oregon but they can't ship to CA. (California has really strict agricultural interdictions around crop plants. In this case, they're trying to avoid citrus virus.) Strike one. But someone on the NAFEX list says some of the larger SoCal nurseries carry it. And someone in CRFG says that Menlo Growers might have it although it's extremely frustrating that Menlo Growers doesn't have a website so I can't find out right now. Then it turns out that someone in CRFG has grafted Yuzu onto one of their citrus trees and would be willing to give me some budwood. But, of course, that would mean I'd have to learn something about t-budding. Which I've been chickenshit about doing. I don't think any of the t-budding I did with peach scions took successfully.
Before I found some local leads, I was getting close to asking a Japanese acquaintance if he could bring a small plant back for me from Japan. :)
I can get crazy about this stuff. Will I eat the Yuzu myself? Well, I'll certainly try it. But I doubt it would be something I'd use a lot. I'd try to use the fruit for trading or sell it to local gourmet cooks (or barter it to them for some of their wares). But do I *need* it? No. I'm even cash poor right now because the insurance company is doing their usual deny, deny, deny, reduce and repeat regarding my temporarily disability insurance (and, yes, it hurts to type all this...)
Still, telling me that a certain useful plant is hard to get or is banned actually makes me that much more interested in having it. I get that way about out-of-print media as well. Suddenly I have to have it NOW.
