All You Can Eat

"Tangerine, she is all they claim
With her eyes of night and lips as bright as flame
Tangerine, when she dances by,
Senoritas stare and caballeros sigh
And I've seen toasts to Tangerine
Raised in every bar across the Argentine
Yes, she has them all on the run,
But her heart belongs to just one
Her heart belongs to Tangerine"


Frank Sinatra, April 11, 1962, Los Angeles



For a long time, I didn't like fresh cherries. Well, I didn't think I liked fresh cherries. I can't explain it; I just know that it was true.


One day, I woke up and didn't just like fresh cherries. I LOVED fresh cherries! As with other food dislikes that seemed to become total distractions overnight, I was quickly struck by the irony. God decided long before I was born that fresh cherry season in the United States would only be about eight weeks long. I had wasted precious years. By the time I realized that I really loved fresh cherries, I had already missed about 256 weeks of fresh cherry seasons. That was almost five years of available fresh cherry-eating that had passed me by. That I had permitted to pass me by.


Like most things in the body, the human physiology of taste is remarkably complex. It's tied to the sense of smell; and the location and function of taste buds change from birth to adulthood. I think. I have used that excuse to rationalize why my children rejected or accepted certain foods while they were little, then suddenly announced that they either did or did not like those things now. With mock horror that I could be so unaware and the requisite eye-rolling.


Along the way, I stopped trying to keep an updated inventory of their food preferences. We ate what we ate, and they never seemed to go hungry. I must admit that, at one time, I was certain Meredith considered chicken nuggets to be a food group unto themselves. I envisioned chicken nuggets as the entree at her future wedding reception. Along with her condiment of choice -- ketchup. Also a discrete food group.


That she now works part-time at Chick-fil-A was likely foreshadowed from an early age. She gets it honest. I could eat chicken at every meal and be perfectly satisfied.


It's often been said by mothers across the country that if their children get hungry enough, they'll eat anything. I don't know. We're very blessed to have never truly encountered that life-altering scenario. But, it is true that taste changes over time, and with advancing age. It changes according to its environment, and once your child moves away from home and eats in a dorm cafeteria or is forced to eat her own cooking, changes can occur quite rapidly.


Peer pressure also helps. After Shannon transferred from USC to Nebraska, she was chastised by her new soccer teammates at the training table about the lack of fruit on her plate. Ironic for a girl born and raised in California. But, I didn't have to say anything about it anymore. About a dozen women in the 18-22 age group took care of it for me. That doesn't mean that she immediately started eating every kind of fruit that was offered in the athletes-only dining room. But, she did try some things and ate more of the ones she did like. Whatever it takes.

So, I couldn't help but run a quick trip down memory lane yesterday when I got the following text from this darling daughter: "Mmmmm. I love tangerines!"

I remembered all those orange slices on her high chair tray that were left behind. Not from the beginning, but from about age 18 months. All those carefully-sliced orange slices available during AYSO soccer halftimes, from about age 6 to age 9, that she would not eat. All those carefully-sliced orange slices available during club soccer halftimes, from about age 10 to age 18, that she would not eat. All those carefully-sliced orange slices that somebody prepared in the back of an SUV in Oahu, at great expense, during Far West Regionals in 2003. That she would not eat.

It seems the breakthrough started when she was showing me the pictures of one of the snowboarding trips during this Christmas break. While stuck in complete-stop traffic on I-70 west, she had consumed what she called "a baby orange." She had photographed the skin on a napkin as both proof and a work of art. It was on the trip thanks to Stephanie, her friend from high school, and a former employee of Whole Foods. Working at a place like that, you see a lot of fresh produce. You see a lot of fruit. You see a lot of fruit that you can't get other places.


But, a baby orange?


I was perplexed. If such a thing exists, why don't I already know about it??! I'M the foodie in this family, and I can't imagine that my child might make a food discovery that I don't already know about.


I suggested that this piece of fruit was actually a tangerine.


"No, Mom! It was a baby orange." Importantly, she loved it. Whatever it was.


Frankly, the only "baby orange" I could recall in my pea brain was the skin condition caused by consumption of too much beta carotene.

And, it's true that -- thanks to cultivating practices -- "baby" anything is possible in most matters relating to food actually sourced from nature. Baby carrots in the grocery store used to really BE baby carrots. And, in some specialty stores and some parts of the country, they still are that thing. Unfortunately, however, the name "baby carrot" is also used to label a product that is really shaved down from a bigger carrot. It's size, taste, texture and color bear no resemblance to REAL baby carrots.


People who ship citrus from Florida to friends and family, and to themselves, can buy things like Baby Valencias, Baby Temples, and Baby Honeybell Tangelos. But, only one of these three items is really an "orange" in the sense that it's only an orange. That would be, of course, the Baby Valencia. The Baby Temple is a cross between an orange and a tangerine. The name "Honeybell" is a variety; and the tangelo is, of course, a cross between a tangerine and either a pomelo or a grapefruit.

Are these distinctions with a difference or distinctions without a purpose? I don't know. I just wanted to know what Shannon really ate, because she liked it. When a family member discovers that they like something that is actually good for them, I'm interesting in reinforcing the behavior.

I guess it really doesn't matter at all. She's eating fruit. It's orange. She really likes it. So, she's probably going to do it again. At least for the remaining four to eight weeks of "baby orange" season.