Do you get good Florida navel oranges in the grocery store? If so, yes please!Originally Posted by chriskre
Here at the Supermarket.
Want me to send you a box?
Do you get good Florida navel oranges in the grocery store? If so, yes please!Here at the Supermarket.
Want me to send you a box?
Wait a minute.. how long do they last? Do you refrigerate them? And are they really that much better than the Florida oranges we get up here in the store?
Ok, now you've got me looking. Sunharvest sells by the pound ($20 for 5 lbs) but the one Wacky ordered from is by the tray... how many to a pound, roughly?
I'm getting ready to order half navels and half red navels... I want an orange now!
Last edited by Glitter Brunello; 10-16-2012 at 11:19 PM.
They're okay.Do you get good Florida navel oranges in the grocery store? If so, yes please!
I think they export the good stuff to you guys up north.
We actually have alot of California citrus here in the stores. Go figure.
Best Florida oranges I ever had were the 5 I picked off the trees in Vero Beach's Dodgertown while there for a finance conference many years ago. They looked awful compared to the bag I bought, but they were a lot better tasting.
That's been my experience in Florida. I expected to find great produce--great citrus, anyway--in grocery stores, but the quality is nowhere near what we see in ordinary good chain stores outside Manhattan. And the prices are the same! I do think they export the top-quality produce to major markets.They're okay.
I think they export the good stuff to you guys up north.
It seems to be a similar situation with Maine potatoes and perhaps most kinds of state oriented produce.
They last at least a month in the refrigerator, probably longer, but they never last much longer around here. We refrigerate them because some of us have pretty sensitive noses and sense of taste, so we can smell or taste the merest hint of mold or decay (which, in oranges, has a very strong smell--it's not like we have super-powers or anything).
Here's the thing about ordering for November delivery. The navels are available in November, but they're not that great in November, in my experience. The lady at Nokomis confirmed that the longer the oranges stay on the tree, the sweeter and juicier they will be. That's why I waited for delivery in January. December is probably good too. I do worry that if there's a shortage, my January oranges won't be available or good...so maybe I will get some December ones, too.
Most places sell by the tray, so you buy 1/4 bushel (one tray), 1/2 bushel (two trays), 3/4 bushels (three trays), or a full bushel (four trays). A bushel is about 40-50 pounds, which sounds like a lot till you consider that a single large navel orange can weigh almost a pound. Figure no more than two oranges to a pound, I would say.
Okay, it's still a lot.
Here's a handy chart:
http://www.sungroves.com/faq.htm
As to whether they're better than the ones we get in the store up here...yes, if you get a good box, they're fantastic. The Florida oranges in my local Italian market, where we go for good produce, are just pathetic little specimens compared to the ones that get shipped straight up. The shipped ones are big and heavy and dense with juice. Some are that same pale color, but the better ones are a nice golden orange. We like the slightly smaller (but still bigger than the NJ ones) Florida oranges, rather than the big huge ones with the very thick skin, because the smaller ones seem to be juicier and sweeter...but that might be later-season ones.
I really miss those Orange Car stores. They were great. I think of them every winter.
They say the freshness makes a big difference.
That's supposed to be one reason why the shipped oranges are better than the ones in the grocery stores--they fill the order in Florida and ship it straight to you. Hopefully.
We stopped at a nice little fruit stand on the way back from Vero beach too called Al's Family Farms.
Looks like they ship too.
http://www.alsfamilyfarms.com
Yes they do so I usually buy the California stuff or the cheap Valencia oranges that come in the big bags.
Actually I prefer the Valencias. Easy to peel and not too sweet but always juicy.
Some of the other oranges can be a little dry. Rarely are the Valencias dry.
I just realized I didn't mention the Orange Car stores earlier. Does anyone remember them? They were little stores right near the train tracks in New Jersey. I think there were four of them--in New Brunswick, in Paterson, and two more. They were little buildings painted orange, and they sold nothing but oranges, whole pecans, coconut patties, Florida honey, all the things you might get at a roadside stand in Florida. The oranges were already packed in big paper bags, and you just chose your paper bag.
They would have a train car of oranges shipped straight up to New Jersey and they would unload them direct to the little stores. The oranges were so good. I remember finding out that a high-school friend of mine was from the family that owned the one in New Brunswick, and feeling like I had met a celebrity!
Most of the year the stores were boarded up, and they had a sign on the front that said, "The Orange Car is CLOSED for the season. We will reopen in late NOVEMBER, when the oranges have ripened on the trees."
The one in New Brunswick closed probably in the late 1980s, but the one in Paterson kept going into the 1990s. Anyone?
Reply With Quote
