There were Meyer lemons and regular lemons at the Berkeley farmers market today, picked early to avoid the frost. I was surprised at how cheap they were — $2 and $1.50 per pound, from Blue Heron and Kaki farms, respectively — given all the reports that at least half the state’s citrus crop has been ruined by this unusually cold weather. I love lemons, especially the sweet juicy Meyers; I have been known to steal forage for them in my neighborhood when I run out. So, expecting at the very least that prices would be rising once the extent of the damage was revealed, I bought a bunch.
Northern California’s citrus growers were not as hard hit as others in the state, explained the weekly newsletter of San Francisco’s Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA). On average, they have fewer acres and so were able to harvest most of their lemons, grapefruit, and oranges before the cold weather could get to them, although the fruit may not be as sweet as if it had been allowed to reach its peak ripeness. The newsletter reported that local growers “felt optimistic” about fruit still on the tree, but won’t know for a week what the damage is. Small Northern California’s farmers also grow a large variety of crops, which helps them weather the destruction of a few.
Interestingly, “diversity is often their only protection, because most small farmers growing for the farmers’ market don’t carry crop insurance and couldn’t get it if they wanted to,” CUESA wrote. Apparently insurance companies require exact verifiable quantities of each crop grown, but small holdings will do multiple plantings for continual harvesting, sometimes with different varieties — my CSA Eatwell planted dozens of different kinds of melons throughout last summer.
To make the lemons last longer, I grated the zest with a microplaner then juiced the bald fruit with a citrus press. (Both nifty tools were gifts. Thanks Mom!) I poured the juice into the ice-cube trays I use for freezing individual portions of stock. “That should hold me for a while,” I thought proudly — right before I spilled a bunch of the juice while trying to put the trays in the freezer.
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January 21st, 2007 at 8:03 am
I was getting so confused……the Meyer lemon talk made me think I was on Fat Free Vegan….then I saw the article digest. You should head over there and check out some of her Meyer lemon posts and recipes.
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/
January 21st, 2007 at 10:12 am
Hi Ness: Thanks for the tip. Boy, I didn’t know “fat free” could look quite so sexy — FFV has some gorgeous food porn. I especially like the looks of this citrusy recipe: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/12/calamondin-or-lemon-pie-with-oatmeal.html
January 21st, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Do you freeze the zest? How much juice does one ice cube make? 2 tablespoons? Also do you leave it in the trays or put the frozen cubes into a bag? It seems like if you left them open in the freezer they might get weird smells or something.
January 21st, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Hi Breena — I do freeze the zest, and I used some of it today. It seemed fine, but I will say that it worked better when I used to peel the zest carefully, avoiding the pith, with a vegetable peeler. The slices were bigger and required chopping, but they also seemed to freeze better.
Each ice cube makes roughly two tablespoons. And yes, as with stock, I also remove the cubes and store them flat in one layer in a resealable plastic bag with as much air pressed out as possible.