EATING AN ORANGE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 27, 4 July 1891, Page 134

EATING AN ORANGE.

THERE IS AN ART ABOUT IT THAT IS NOT EASILY ACQUIRED.

I NTII. the last few years, since oranges have become popularized, it was a matter of no little difficulty and concern to those who desired to eat gracefully to hit upon the best way to eat an orange. The thick, easily broken skin of the Spanish and Italian oranges admitted of but little variation in method. The skin was carefully removed and the fruit separated in its natural sections and eaten piece by piece. With the thin, tough peel and tender interior skin of the Florida orange this was a matter of greater difficulty. Fastidious people objected to the style which is the delight of childhood, viz., punching a hole in the orange with the forefinger and extracting the juice by pressure and suction, and soon the fashion was set of dividing the orange in halves at the equator, if the expression may be permitted, and digging out the pulp with a teaspoon. Some genius improved upon this by cutting off only a small slice of the top of the orange, at about the Arctic circle, so to speak, then with a sharp knife cutting out the core. A second circular cut just inside the skin separates the pulp, and if the operation is dexterously perfoimed the fruit can be eaten with a spoon without spilling a drop of the juice, a recommendation which has made it more popular than any other method. The native Sicilian, who does not care if he does get a little of the juice smeared upon his countenance, takes his long, sharp knife—every Sicilian carries a long, sharp knife for family purposes, as he generally has a vendetta or two on hand—and cuts the orange spirally around so that it becomes a long strip of peel and pulp. He grabs this strin at either end and draws it rapidly across his mouth, absorbing the juice as it passes. It is not pretty, but it is remarkably effective. , . , . Another fashion of eating an orange -which is considerable trouble, and has but little to recommend it, is to cut just through the skin at the equator, and by carefully turning the peel back, form a cup of the skin at each pole of the orange. The pulp is then bitten oil around and around, as a schoolboy eats an apple. . NV bile this style keeps the hands comparatively clean, it smears the face most unpleasantly. The same objection may be urged against the fashion of peeling the orange on a fork and holding it in that way while eating it. Some people thrust a fork into the core of an orange, peel the fruit and then slice it as one would an apple, losing thereby a large quantity of the juice. At a dinner table, if the orange knives are very sharp—a circumstance which rarely happens, by the way —this is perhaps as good a way as any. It is simple and makes no fuss, and there is an air oi refinement about touching the fruit only with the knife and fork, if it be gracefully done, which recommends it to many people.