Yesterday, after dinner, Tina and I split an orange. This was a delicacy made new by my perusal of the John McPhee treatise Oranges this weekend. As with all McPhee books, this is filled with fun and fascinating facts that weave together into a compelling story. For instance:

* An orange is always sweeter on the blossom end. I tested this rule of thumb, and it held quite well for the ochre segments we ate (over the sink, of course) in the kitchen.
* The best oranges on a tree are grown high up, on the south-facing side.
* Navel oranges have a thick skin (as do California-grown oranges) compared to the Valencia orange (or the Florida-grown ones).
* Far from the corporate behemoth I pictured it as, Sunkist is the largest agricultural cooperative in the world.
* Frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ, for fans of the film Trading Places) is not simply concentrated orange juice. It's fresh OJ that's been vaccuum-extracted to within an inch of its life, resulting in a tepid acid-sugar syrup with no particular orange character. Packers then add a small amount of fresh OJ and d-limonene (orange peel oil) to give it the flavor we've come to know and love as "orange juice." No WONDER freshly-squeezed OJ tastes so different from Minute Maid.