o mandarinquat, where art thou?

before candying my first batch of mandarinquats I took the lot into the dining room and set them up for portraits/ still lifes.

if you went into Berkeley Bowl Sunday looking for said fruits you found a lot of them before 2 and none after that.

sometimes a pastry chef needs to be cutthroat. one needs to follow the rules of yellow taxi cab drivers in nyc: no rules/ anarchy rules.

I needed all those 'quats. I would stop at nothing less than all of them. let them try and restock: I'll be back.

if you have an itch to see the series, check them out on flickr...

why do I love them so? why the obsession?

first it's the funny way you feel when you say their name:
        m a n d a r i n q u a t.
quirky, daring, silly, flirtatious, kooky, knowledgeable.

yes, there are a lot of seeds. yes they're slimy with pure pectin. yes you're knife has to be really sharp.

no, they're not as easy to eat whole as their kin the kumquat. but, yes, you can candy the whole wagon-wheel and yes, they candy really fast-- with no pre-blanching necessary (might you allow me to suggest a simple syrup of 1:1.5  = sugar: water)

two, they're lovely to gaze upon. look at that shape! so varied! so elegant! pear-like or round or conical or squat.

and the color? well that's obvious. seeing that orange is the new black.

mandarinquat.

o yeah.

Comments

[Susan from Food Blogga]

I've seen mandarins and I've seen kumquats, but I haven't seen mandarinquats at our San Diego farmers' markets. I'll be asking about them now though. I get giddy at the thought of those mouth-puckeringly tart kumquats, so I can't imagine how much I would love these.

[shuna fish lydon]

Susan,

sometimes when a fruit is this specialized you might not find it at your local f.m. even if they're grown locally. For example, I can't even seem to get these fruits from my local produce company. They might only be grown by one or a couple of farms.

In order to grow rare fruit, the farmers who chose to do so, can usually only afford to sell directly in small quantities. Until more farmers plant these trees, finding them easily won't be the case.

But they are worth looking for! Let us know if you get ahold of some...

[Monkey Wrangler]

Heh, I STILL have the sugary print of the wagon wheel I dropped on my jeans at Kat's place.......

(read: time for laundry)

hugs,
D

[Lorrie]

Hi Shuna - I just woke from a very vivid dream about tasting mandarinquats, solely based on reading this post before I went to bed! Thanks for another great post. :)
-Lorrie

[sugarlaws]

those are absolutely gorgeous!

[Dr. Biggles]

You're cool, buy them all. As I read I was thinking, how the hell did she know that after 2pm they were all gone? You're cool, buy them all.

Orange is the new black? Meathenge just jumped a level of cool. Now I just need to figure out how to cook something.

Biggles

[janelle]

I am in love, ah mandarinquats. Beautiful, darling, delicious, worthy of any camera lense, your kitchen, the knife. All is fair in love and war, taxi rules included.

All the obsessing aside, I hope your 2008 is off to a good start!

[C(h)ristine]

I just bought a couple of handfuls, because of your high recommendation! They're at the fruit/vegetable store in Market Hall (was just browsing spotted them, remembered your post and swiped some up).

They're a bit wieldier than kumquats for eating out of hand (I took a bite an a big stream of mandarinquat juice streamed into my hair)...so I'm candying them. I've just stolen a bite of them (they're still cooling)--DELISH.

[Cathy]

I just bought some at Trader Joe's today...I didn't expect them to be so sour! They are certainly beautiful though.

[shuna fish lydon]

Cathy,

Did you eat the whole thing together? If you do not eat a bit of skin and interior you don't get the sweet/sour effect. Just like a kuquat, but bigger, and I think the mandarinquat is sweeter than the kumquat, but I realize it's a fine line for those whose mouths are strong enough to eat rind and all...