23 sleeps to go - The smell of tangerines...

Life should smell of tangerines, not cabbage. I'll leave that train of thought there, but I think you know what I mean.

Tangerines really are the smell of Christmas alongside pine needles from the tree and roasting turkey. It’s hard to peel a tangerine and not be taken on a journey to Christmas’s past. Christmas morning stockings, the orange waxy fruit tucked away in the bottom, more orange than orange and vibrant. I loved the way the skin peeled so easily (unlike an orange) and the squirt of juicy tangerine spray which always managed to find your eye. The citrus oil smell clung to your fingers and stayed all day - a bit like an unwelcome relative.

More orange than orange. Yes, tangerine.

The name tangerine comes from Tangier in Morocco, the port from which the first tangerines were shipped to Europe in 1841. I remember the exotic looking boxes in the shops and for some reason think of Spanish ladies with fans. They’d come individually wrapped in waxed paper inside the bleached wooden crate and sometimes you’d find a brittle green leaf inside.

These days it seems that Tangerines have all but disappeared from the shops and I get blank looks in supermarkets when I ask for them. They are there though, but in disguise and it all comes down to fashion and names. Tangerine is the old name for Mandarin, which is an all encompassing term for the citrus fruits of several trees. The name started to be dropped in the swinging ‘60s, in favour of its more exotic-sounding alternative, although of the two I find Tangerine more exotic. When I say the word ‘tangerine’, letting my tongue and teeth feast on its luscious juiciness, I see a moustachioed turban-wearing Turk, wielding a long, curved scimitar. Amidst all these orangey fruits just where the Satsuma fits in I’ve no idea… and as for the Clementine - well ding dong.

Back in boyhood I’d sometimes make tangerine candles from the tangerine skin. I don’t remember who showed me how to do this, but it was probably my Uncle Charlie. First I’d cut around the tangerine’s circumference so that once I’d removed the succulent segments I was left with two empty halves. It wasn’t an easy job and I often had to start over several times as I needed to make sure that the inner pity centre of the fruit was attached as this became the wick. Once I had two halves and a decent wick I’d cut a star in the no-wick half to let the heat out and pour a little olive oil (bought from the chemist back then), not too much, into the other. I’d trim the wick so that it was about a eighth of an inch (a few millimetres) above the oil, then light it and ‘hey presto’, the smell of Christmastime in a tiny blue flame.

I might make some this year. The smell might give me a tangerine dream.