Nass­er Khan

"To plant a gar­den is to be­lieve in to­mor­row," said Au­drey Hep­burn. Whether you have a big back­yard, or just enough room to grow some herbs on your bal­cony, you can still grow food. You will be amazed at how many toma­toes can grow out of one pot. Here are some good rea­sons to start plant­i­ng: good on taste, your wal­let, clean, chem­i­cal- free, healthy, good for the fam­i­ly.

It is crit­i­cal that we as a na­tion en­gage and sup­port the re­vival of lo­cal food pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion. As a coun­try, we must place greater em­pha­sis on at least some de­gree of food sov­er­eign­ty as a mat­ter of ur­gent at­ten­tion. Vis­it the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries' web­site at http://www.agri­cul­ture.gov.tt/ Read the fol­low­ing about a com­mu­ni­ty in Aus­tralia that grows its own food af­ter be­ing fed up with high food prices: https://medi­um.com/@abc­news/me et-the-street-that-grows-its-own­food- 41951a9266f7#.bvx4e48ir

Easy-peel cit­rus

In this the 28th in­stal­ment of a con­tin­u­ing se­ries, we fea­ture easypeel cit­rus fruits. Cit­rus fruits have been cul­ti­vat­ed in an ever-widen­ing area since an­cient times, with the best-known ex­am­ples be­ing or­anges, lemons, grape­fruit, and limes. Cit­rus trees hy­bridize very read­i­ly, giv­ing rise to a very ex­ten­sive range of cul­ti­vars.

It is be­lieved, based on mol­e­c­u­lar stud­ies, that the cit­ron, pum­me­lo, man­darin and pape­da were the an­ces­tors of all oth­er cit­rus species and their va­ri­eties, which re­sult­ed from breed­ing or nat­ur­al hy­bridiza­tion among the parental species.

The easy-peel (or loose skin) group of cit­rus fruits, as the name im­plies, refers to those va­ri­eties which can be eat­en out of hand by just peg­ging (re­mov­ing) the skin. In these fruit, the mid­dle lay­er or meso­carp which is the white, spongy "albe­do" or "pith" is re­duced, thus cre­at­ing a space be­tween the out­er skin and the flesh.

Al­so, the in­ner seg­ments can be eas­i­ly sep­a­rat­ed. In this group, there are wide vari­a­tions and it is still un­de­cid­ed (ge­net­i­cal­ly) whether the ori­gins are from man­darins or tan­ger­ines. While tan­ger­ines ge­net­i­cal­ly re­sem­ble man­darins, the ge­net­ics are still not thor­ough­ly stud­ied.

The term is cur­rent­ly ap­plied to any red­dish-or­ange man­darin and in some places, man­darin-like hy­brids. The name man­darin is as re­gal as is this fruit's an­ces­try. Na­tive to Chi­na and north-east­ern In­dia, they are one of three orig­i­nal species of cit­rus, in­clud­ing pum­me­los and cit­rons.

All oth­er cit­rus fruits are ge­net­ic com­bi­na­tions of these three as hy­brids and mu­ta­tions, in­clud­ing or­anges, which are cross­es be­tween man­darins and pum­me­los. Man­darins are of­ten small­er and flat­ter than or­anges. This fruit has a bright, loose or­ange skin which is easy to peel. The in­ner seg­ments are eas­i­ly sep­a­rat­ed, with a unique aro­ma of spice.

There are seed­ed, seed­less and some sour va­ri­eties. The man­darin or­ange is a group of cit­rus fruits clas­si­fied Cit­rus retic­u­la­ta that in­cludes va­ri­eties as sat­suma, cleme­tine, dan­cy, hon­ey, pix­ie and tan­ger­ines/ por­tu­gals, in gen­er­al. Most are sweet­er than oth­er cit­rus.

Man­darin refers to the colour of this cit­rus fruit's skin when al­lowed to ful­ly ripen–bright or­ange as were the robes worn by the Man­darins who were an­cient Chi­nese of­fi­cials. Man­darin or­anges grow wild in Chi­na and have been cul­ti­vat­ed in Asia for three mil­len­nia. An­oth­er rea­son they bear this name is these fruits were grown orig­i­nal­ly on­ly for the up­per class in the Far East.

Man­darin or­anges did not reach Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca un­til the mid-1800s. The first man­darin or­anges com­mer­cial­ly ex­port­ed were shipped from the city of Tang­iers in Mo­roc­co, be­com­ing tan­ger­ines. It seems an­oth­er va­ri­ety must have been shipped from Por­tu­gal, most like­ly our name for a va­ri­ety of this fruit.

It can be con­fus­ing. A tan­ger­ine or por­tu­gal is a type of man­darin or­ange, but not all man­darin or­anges are tan­ger­ines or por­tu­gals. Tan­ger­ines are small­er and less round­ed than com­mon or­anges. The taste is con­sid­ered sweet­er and stronger than an or­ange.

A ripe tan­ger­ine is firm to slight­ly soft, heavy for its size, and peb­bly-skinned with no deep grooves, as well as or­ange in colour. The peel is very thin, with very lit­tle bit­ter white meso­carp, which makes them usu­al­ly eas­i­er to peel and to split in­to seg­ments. All of these traits are al­so shared by man­darins gen­er­al­ly.

The first of two pop­u­lar easy-peel va­ri­eties in the West In­dies is or­tanique, a nat­ur­al tan­gor (cross be­tween and or­ange and a tan­ger­ine) that was dis­cov­ered in Ja­maica.

The name is a com­bi­na­tion of "or" for or­ange, "tan" for tan­ger­ine, and "ique" for unique, giv­en its name by H H Cousins, a for­mer di­rec­tor of agri­cul­ture. Or­taniques from Ja­maica ma­ture to a bright or­ange colour but in Trinidad, the skin colour re­mains a dull green­ish-yel­low.

The oth­er pop­u­lar one is por­tu­gal, very pop­u­lar in T&T, and comes in­to sea­son dur­ing the lat­ter part of the year–Oc­to­ber un­til around March. Por­tu­gal (cit­rus de­li­ciosa) be­longs to one of the species of cit­rus called the man­darin (cit­rus retic­u­la­ta).

Man­darin is the largest and most var­ied group of ed­i­ble cit­rus with por­tu­gal, dan­cy and Mrs Wrights (as in Asa Wright) mak­ing up the three most pop­u­lar types in T&T. Por­tu­gal juice is an ex­cel­lent source of vi­t­a­min C (ascor­bic acid) and potas­si­um. It is al­so a nat­ur­al source of folic acid (Vi­t­a­min B9) and vi­t­a­min A.

How did the por­tu­gal get its name? Did it come via Por­tu­gal or is it a de­riva­tion of 'pret­ty girl' as in 'pur­ty gal' which was even­tu­al­ly Trinida­di­anised to be­come poti­gal or pootee­gal? Small­er than an or­tanique fruit but with the char­ac­ter­is­tic flat base and peaked stem end, these fruits are tru­ly an easy peel. As fruits ma­ture they turn a bright yel­low-or­ange hue.

Por­tu­gal juice, very pop­u­lar when fruits are in sea­son, is bright or­ange. The skin of the por­tu­gal con­tains aro­mat­ic oils and once the peel is bro­ken, these oils are re­leased in­to the air and on­to your hands.

You can­not miss the strong and un­mis­tak­able cit­rus scent of a por­tu­gal be­ing peeled and is cer­tain­ly not a fruit you might think of sneak­ing in­to a room for a dis­creet snack. Like most cit­rus fruits, both or­taniques and por­tu­gals of­fer a nu­tri­tious pack­age with Vi­t­a­min C and min­er­als, thus mak­ing them ide­al for chil­dren's lunch box­es.

When plant­i­ng these trees, it is rec­om­mend­ed to use graft­ed plants which should come in­to bear­ing by year four. These trees be­gin to bear while trees are still small but can ma­ture in­to large trees. Plant­i­ng on well-drained soil is al­so rec­om­mend­ed since death from foot rot is com­mon.

Here in T&T we tend to grav­i­tate to­wards fruits and foods that are not lo­cal. Es­ti­mates are that our food im­port bill is near TT$5 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly, about 85 per cent of our food in­take, most of it processed and high in ar­ti­fi­cial ad­di­tives and sug­ar and salt. This se­ries is writ­ten in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cyn­thra Per­sad, re­tired di­rec­tor of Re­search, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture. For in­for­ma­tion on ac­quir­ing copies of the Crops of T&T charts, email fruit­stt@live.com

Co­conut Man­darin Cake

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS:

2 cups all-pur­pose flour

1/2 tsp salt

3 tsp bak­ing pow­der

1 1/2 cups sug­ar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup man­darin juice

1/2 cup veg­etable oil

3 eggs, beat­en

1 1/2 tsp grat­ed or­ange zest

6 tb­sp but­ter, soft­ened

2 cups con­fec­tion­ers' sug­ar

2 tb­sp or­ange juice

1 tsp vanil­la ex­tract

1 cup flaked, sweet­ened co­conut

METHOD

�2 Pre­heat oven to 350 de­grees F (175 de­grees C). Grease and flour two

8-inch round cake pans.

�2 In a mea­sur­ing cup, com­bine milk, 1/2 cup man­darin juice, oil, beat­eneg­gs, and or­ange zest. Set aside.

�2 Sift flour, salt and bak­ing pow­der in­to a large bowl. Mix in sug­ar. Makea well in the cen­tre and pour in the milk mix­ture. Stir un­til thor­ough­ly­combined.

�2 Add co­conut flakes and stir

�2 Di­vide bat­ter in­to pre­pared pans. Bake in the pre­heat­ed oven for 35min­utes, or un­til a tooth­pick in­sert­ed in­to the cen­tre of the cake come­sout clean. Al­low to cool.

FOR FROST­ING

�2 Beat cream cheese, but­ter or­mar­garine, or­angepeel, and or­ange­juice un­til creamy.Beat in­con­fec­tion­er'ssug­ar un­til­blend­ed andsmooth.

�2 Add crushed­man­darin.

�2 Frost cake an­dal­low ic­ing set one tot­wo hours. Re­frig­er­ate.

MAN­DARIN CREAM

CHEESE FROST­ING:

15 oz crushed man­darin or­anges

3 ounces cream cheese, soft­ened

2 tb­sp but­ter, soft­ened

1 tsp or­ange zest

2 tb­sp fresh or­ange juice

2 1/2 cups con­fec­tion­ers' sug­ar

1 cup flaked, sweet­ened co­conut

Note: If you are us­ing man­dari­no­r­anges for gar­nish, be sure to se­ta few aside