Exotic/Disgusting Foods and Beverages Forum--Temple Oranges

It's back to a citrus fruit this week.  Another hybrid, too.  Admittedly, it's not that unusual a choice, but here it is.  I got this temple orange at the local Shop Rite supermarket.  If you're curious, I've discussed many citrus fruits/fruit hybrids over the years.  Here's a list, with the post dates:

1) Fruit hybrids--March 20, 2013
2) Pummelo--February 20, 2014
3) Buddha hands--December 29, 2014
4) Ugli--March 6, 2015
5) More fruit hybrids--July 25, 2015
6) Sweetie citrus--January 27, 2016

     The background of the temple orange is a bit complicated.  One source said they're a hybrid of an orange and a tangerine.  Another said it was the "child" of a Mandarin orange and a sweet orange.  One of the issues is that different countries define a "tangerine" in different ways.  Also, every type of citrus fruit is a hybrid of the original three kinds--the citron, Mandarin orange, and the pummelo.  Suffice it to say, it appears that temple oranges are a hybrid mostly of oranges, and are a sub-type of them.  This fruit also goes by a lot of other names.  Kind of Siam, murcott, setoka, umatilla, and tanglor (a combination of "tangerine" and "orange"), to name just a few.  They were reportedly discovered in Jamaica in 1896, apparently from a wild hybridization.  Some accounts say the discoverer was named Boyce.  Whatever his or her name was, somebody sent some budding branches to Florida, and they began to grow and thrive there.  By 1919 they were being grown commercially.  This new fruit was then named after a deceased famous citrus grower, William Chase Temple (more on him later).  Their current modest popularity is helped by their ease of peeling and sectioning, relative lack of pith, and pleasing flavor.  Consumers like them plain, in fruit salads, or as parts of appetizers, entrees, and desserts.  Like most oranges, temples are high in Vitamin C, as well as having some Vitamin B1, folate, and fiber.

Temple orange, from Seald Sweet out of Florida, U.S.A.:  The one I bought looked mostly like a typical orange--its color was more reddish-orange, but not remarkably so.  It was round, and had a diameter of about 7 cm. (about 2.75 inches), although some of its mates in the bin at the store were bigger.  As advertised it was noticeably easy to peel, and to break into sections, and the inner whitish pith was less than in a typical orange.  The pulp was yellowish-orange.  The taste was okay, but very much like a regular orange.  I don't know that I could have distinguished between the two in a blind taste test.  So overall the temple orange was a decent snack, but I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't much different or unique in its flavor.

     Getting back to this fruit's namesake, William Chase Temple was a bit of a Renaissance Man.  He was successful in many business ventures, as he's listed as a "baron" of coal, citrus fruits, lumber, and sports.  For the last one, Temple was co-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1891-93.  (He's also supposedly the first person to come up with the idea of the designated hitter, which was eventually adapted in the American League in 1973, and may well be by the National League very soon.)  Then, he's credited as the first sole owner of a professional football club, the Duquesne Country and Athletic Club, from 1898-1900.  Additionally, he was said to be an alleged silent owner of the Pittsburgh Stars, a team in an earlier pro league that was also named the National Football League, in 1902.  (He denied this, but some historians think he was lying.)  Still other positions held by him were the first President of the South Florida Chamber of Commerce, and a town mayor.  Finally, he was also reportedly the first lifetime member of the American Automobile Association, the AAA.  I realize all this biographical information is more than most readers probably care about, but I'm jonesing for sports, especially baseball, at this time.  Clearly there are way more important societal concerns happening now, but the distraction of sports is nevertheless missed.