The fruit of the feast of the tabernacles

• By Daphne Caruana Galizia

For many centuries, the citron has been used in Jewish rites of the feast of the tabernacle, instead of the cedar cone specified by Moses. This curious fact leaves its legacy in the Latin word citrus, which is a corruption of the Greek for ‘cedar’. Though the citron is a standard crop in the region that was once the Kingdom of Naples and of the two Sicilies, it is completely unknown in Malta, except for a few that grow in private gardens.

The fruit of the citron tree (Citrus medica) looks like a giant lemon. When sliced through the middle, the pith is revealed to be at least 2cm thick, surrounding a relatively small centre of fleshy segments that are pale-green and full of pips. Though at first sight it looks completely inedible, with no possible food use, the huge commercial crops grown in southern Italy, Sicily, Corsica and Puerto Rico supply a food-processing industry that in turn feeds the world’s insatiable demand for candied peel. The peel of the citron, so thick and highly fragrant, is the perfect citrus peel for this kind of processing. The fruit is dark-green when young and takes three months to turn yellow. It is picked when still green because that is the preferred colour for candied peel.

The citron is borne by a slow-growing shrub or small tree reaching 2.5m to 4.5m. Its branches and twigs are much stiffer than those of other citrus trees, and bear sharp spines among the leaves which are evergreen and lemon-scented. The flowerbuds are large and white or purplish, and the flowers are highly fragrant and large. The trees begin to bear fruit when they are three years old, and reach their peak production at around 15 years old. They live for around 25 years. In Israeli citron groves, growers take every precaution to protect the fruit, tying the fruiting branch securely in place and trimming away any twigs that might touch them. To avoid moving irrigation equipment through the groves, they water the trees by hand and spray them frequently to wipe out destructive insects. Italian growers keep citron trees low so that fruit may easily be reached for picking. They stake the branches, and may even trim away the spines, to avoid scarring the fruit. Mature trees yield an average of 30kg of fruit each year.

Candied peel is not made where the citrons are grown. Preparation for export used to be done by halving the citrons, removing the pulp, immersing them in seawater or ordinary salt water, and leaving them to ferment for about 40 days. The brine was changed every two weeks, the fruit was rinsed and then it was put into even denser brine in wooden barrels, and exported. When it arrived at its destination, it was removed from the barrels and partially de-salted. Then it was boiled to soften the peel, and candied using a strong glucose/sucrose solution. The candied peel was dried in the sun and now is dried by technological methods, and then packed for sale. Candying is carried out mainly in Britain, France and the USA.

Puerto Rican food technologists discovered in the early 1970s that the desalted citron could be dehydrated in a hot air tray dryer at 42.22C, reducing its weight by 95% to lower the cost of shipment in barrels of brine. The dehydrated fruit could be transported in polyethylene bags and then reconstituted by the candied-peel processor. Further experiments led to the discovery that cubes of fresh citron, blanched for 30 seconds in water at 76.7C, can be candied with results equal in quality to those from fruit stored in brine. The procedure has cut down on the cost of salt, storage, and shipping of the heavy barrels. Puerto Rican workers devised a method of peeling the immature green fruit by immersing it in a solution of boiling lye, saving the labour of hand-peeling. The pulp of the fruit is then made into marmalade, jelly, and fruit bars that are crusty on the outside and soft within.

Besides candied peel, there are other food uses for the citron. In Indonesia, the peel is eaten raw with rice, and the entire fruit of the ‘fingered’ variety is eaten. If there is enough juice-yield, it is used to make drinks and desserts. In Guatemala, it is used as flavouring for carbonated soft drinks. In Malaya, citron juice is used as a substitute for the juice of lemons, which are imported and so very expensive. A product called ‘citron water’ is made in Barbados and shipped to France for flavouring alcoholic drinks. In Spain, syrup made from citron peel is used to flavour unpalatable medicines.

Chinese and Japanese people prize the citron for its fragrance, and used it to scent rooms. Dried citrons are placed with stored clothing to repel moths, and in southern China citron juice is used in washing fine linen. The essential oil distilled from the peel and blossom is sometimes used in perfumery. In some of the South Pacific islands, cedrat petitgrain oil is distilled from the leaves and twigs of citron trees for the perfume industry in France.

The citron tree is highly sensitive to frost. It does not become dormant for the winter as early as other varieties of citrus, and so its foliage and fruit are easily damaged by the onset of cold. It does not tolerate very intense heat and drought, either. Though it grows widely in Sicily, where it is a commercial crop, it is virtually unknown in Malta, and many Maltese are astonished at the sight of this ‘strange fruit’ – oddly more alien than a tropical mango, because mangoes are imported and sold on fruit trucks, but citrons are not. The citron cannot even tolerate the winter temperatures in Florida, a major world centre for orange-growing. Attempts to grow it commercially were thwarted by winter cold.

Citrus medica is so called because in pre-industrial days it was used as a natural remedy. It was thought effective in controlling seasickness, pulmonary troubles, intestinal ailments, and as an effective purgative to rid the system of poison. This belief persists today when we drink warm water with a squeeze of lemon juice as a way of ‘purging’ the system. In India, distilled citron juice is used as a sedative. In China, the candied peel is used not for confectionery, but as a stimulant or tonic. In West Africa, it is believed to work against rheumatism. In Malaya, a decoction of citron is taken to ward off evil spirits and to expel intestinal worms. In Panama, the essential oil of citron peel is regarded as an antibiotic.

The citron’s true place of origin is unknown, but it is almost certain that it reached the southern and eastern Mediterranean via Persia (today’s Iran). Citron seeds were found in excavations in Iraq, the area of ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to 4000BC. The armies of Alexander are believed to have taken the fruit, and with it obviously the seeds, to Greece, where it still grows profusely. Within a relatively short span of time, the citron had reached southern Italy and Sicily, and thence, Corsica. The citron is noted as a staple food item in Rome in AD300, and is referred to consistently in the culinary treatise published under the name of Apicius. Pliny called it malus medica, malus Assyria and citrus in his writings dated to AD177. The Italian citron groves were largely destroyed during the barbarian incursions as Rome fell, but those in the furthermost reaches of the Kingdom of Naples, in Sicily and in Sardinia, but not in Malta, survived. By the early 11th century, the citron was commonly cultivated at Salerno and the surrounding area, and the fruits, called pomo cedrina, or ‘cedar apple’ were presented in tribute to the Norman overlords. This part of Italy, for centuries from medieval times onwards, supplied citrons to the Jewish populations of Italy, France and Germany, for use in the Feast of the Tabernacles (sukkot) ceremony. Moses had specified the cone of the cedar, called hadar in Hebrew and kedros in Greek.

When the cedar cone fell into disfavour or came to be in short supply because so many tall and slow-growing cedar trees were cut down for ship-timber, the citron was used instead. The Greeks of Palestine began to call it the ‘cedar apple’ or kedromelon. Through the usual trans-Mediterranean linguistic process, kedros, which was Greek for ‘cedar-cone’, was Latinised into cedrus and used to signify the cedar-cone’s ritualistic successor, the citron. Cedrus evolved into citrus and through cross-cultural influences, into citron. The use of the citron in Jewish rites continues until today, with huge groves of the Ethrog variety of the fruit cultivated carefully in Israel, where those for local use are inspected by rabbis before being packed, while those for export are inspected by representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture.

In India, a fruiting branch may be bent down and the immature citron fruit placed while still on the branch into a jar shaped like a human head or another form. The fruit grows to fill the jar, and then the jar is broken. The oddly-shaped result is sold as a curiosity. Above: 'Buddha's fingers'

It is the citron’s role in the Jewish religion that has given us its name. Also, because it was the first citrus variety to reach the Mediterranean, pre-dating the arrival of the bitter orange by at least 1000 years and that of the ‘standard’ orange by around 1600 years, it came to be the name by which all these fruit varieties are known.

The best-known cultivars of citron are:

• The Corsican, which is the leading variety in Corsica
• The Diamante (Cedro Liscio), which is the leading variety in Italy and much favoured by food-processors.
• The Ethrog, the leading variety in Israel, and the official variety for use in the ritual Feast of the Tabernacles.
• The fingered citron, also known as ‘Buddha’s fingers’ (C. medica var. sarcodactylus Swing), which bears fruit that is corrugated, and wholly or partially split into five finger-like segments, with little or no flesh, seedless or with loose seeds. This fruit is highly fragrant and placed as an offering on temple alters. It is commonly grown in China and Japan, and is candied in China.

How the citron is known:

France

cedrat, cidratier, citronnier des Juifs

Spain

cidra, poncil, poncidre, cedro limon, limon cidra, limon Frances

C. America

toronja, which is Spanish for 'grapefruit'

Portugal

cidrao

Italy

cedro, cedrone

Germany

cedratzitrone, cederappelen

Holland

citroen

India

citron, beg-poora, leemoo

Malaya

limau susu, limau mata kerbau, limau kerat lingtang

China

kou-yuan