When I was a little girl, in Bristol, England, in the 1950s, you could only get tangerines at Christmas. They were about the most exotic food you could buy and we didn't differentiate between tangerines, mandarins, satsumas or clementines. Any round, orange, citrus fruit that was too small to be an orange was a tangerine!
I can still see my father's delighted face as he came home on winter nights and produced a tangerine from each of the pockets of his long, dark blue overcoat. I thought the smell of the tangerine was heavenly and even now, it signifies Christmas for me. I didn't know where the fruit came from but I knew I wanted to go there!
Coincidentally I am writing this almost 33 years to the day since my father's death. How happy he would be to know that I have come to live in the land of the tangerine!
I can still see my father's delighted face as he came home on winter nights and produced a tangerine from each of the pockets of his long, dark blue overcoat. I thought the smell of the tangerine was heavenly and even now, it signifies Christmas for me. I didn't know where the fruit came from but I knew I wanted to go there!
Coincidentally I am writing this almost 33 years to the day since my father's death. How happy he would be to know that I have come to live in the land of the tangerine!
2 comments:
We are so fortunate nowadays for so many reasons, but one is the availability of produce from all over the world wherever you live whatever the season, provided you have the money. When I go to New York I see hothouse tomatoes from Vancouver, cheaper than here!
The downside is that nothing is a treat anymore.
When I was a child ice cream was a treat because we had no refrigerator, only an ice box. My children think ice cream is a staple food that you find in the refrigerator and more than one flavour as well.
I think your father would be happy that you have such loving memories of him, including his gift of the tangerines.
regards
jmb
Thanks, jmb. how lovely to at last have a comment on my very first post! Yes, nothing is a treat any more- although here most food is still seasonal and the ice cream disappears from the bars as soon as summer is over! I think my Dad would be happy about it, too.
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