When Good Fruits Go Bad 🤔

I love fruit. I'd marry it if I could. There are very few fruits I'm not crazy about but my favorites tend to be (in no particular order):

• Cherries
• Blueberrues
• Figs
• Satsumas

For those of you who aren't familiar with satsumas, they are a sublime Asian citrus in the mandarin family. Characteristically very small with very thin rinds, they are extremely easy to peel , delicately tender, and absolutely explode in your mouth. I remember falling madly in love with tangerine Lifesavers © as a small child. And I recall wishing that there was an actual fruit which tasted so amazing. The first time I had a satsuma, I immediately knew that my wish had come true.

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Satsumas require a very specific set of conditions to flourish. They have a short season, harvested in autumn. And are available for less than two months, beginning in early to mid November. Unlike other citrus, they cannot be grown year-round. This makes them all the more special. Traditionally they are stuffed in Christmas stockings and enjoyed for luck on New Year's Day.

Every year I start getting giddy with anticipation just after dia de los Muertos. I cannot contain my desire to bite into my first satsuma. But in the past couple of years, they've become slightly less spectacular with every satsuma season.

This year they downright suck. The shapes are odd. The rinds are thicker. They are three to four times their normal size. And the flavor...is gone! My beloved, sweet, tart, pungent, uniquely delicious mandarins have become ordinary...indistinguishable from all the other tangerines.

Suspecting this to be caused by climate change and/or agricultural mediocrity, I've been inspired by my friend @irreverent-dan and his provocative tdsfv series. I've taken a photo of my one true citrus love immediately after its scathing betrayal. And I've spared you the actual fruit.

Okay, I admit it: I still ate it. But it was so very disappointing.