Growing up in the 50's & 60's, my Christmas stocking always had nuts and an orange. It was the only time of year that we got them (tho we had the frozen juice sometimes). I did the same thing for my son, until a few years ago when he asked why did he always have an orange and some nuts in his stocking (he still gets a stocking, even as an adult), and I explained that they were special for Christmas. We discussed it a bit, and of course, his whole life he had eaten oranges and nuts all year; they're no big deal. While I'm grateful to be in a country where we can have pretty much any food we want, at any time, it is too bad that nothing is special any more. I still put an orange and nuts in his stocking, though. It's special to me.
We would have a mandarine orange (from?), which was a rare treat at the time. Even now, they seem to be unavailable in the US, apparently because of lobbying by California orange growers.
My dad, and his father and three brothers were growers in Riverside in the early days. Dad grew for Sunkist for a time too. We lit smudge pots and ran wind machines in the winters to prevent the crops from freezing. The parent navel orange tree is still alive in Riverside. Thank you for this video, HG!
I grew up in Riverside, CA in the '60s when the citrus industry was still an important part of the local economy (the school colors of the oldest high school in town are orange and green). We were taught about Eliza Tibbets in elementary school, and were taken on a field trip to see the "Parent Navel Orange Tree" (one of the trees from her original small grove) that is a national landmark. One of my strongest, and fondest, memories from childhood is the smell of orange blossoms mingled with the smog that was so prevalent in those days. Sadly, a "perfect storm" of increasing demand for housing, aging groves that were going to need to be replanted, and increasing water prices that made profitability difficult, spelled the end of nearly all the commercial citrus farming in the area. A "Citrus Heritage Park" was created so that our following generations can witness a recreation of our lost heritage...
When my family moved to Orange County, CA in the late 60's our house was in a tract that had once been an orange grove. Most everyone in the neighborhood had at least one orange tree on their property. We had three. Occasionally we'd pick oranges in the morning and juice them for breakfast. Over time the trees were removed, either being cut down for landscaping or dying off from lack of care. When we left California about six years ago there was only one left and it still produced lots of oranges.
In 1960 I visited relatives who moved from Chicago to Anaheim. It seemed there were orange groves everywhere. When I visited in 1967 the orange groves were mostly all gone!
As a kid growing up in Florida, I remember the devastating freezes that killed off many orange trees. Some growers sold their land for other use. In fact, the home I live in now was once an orange grove and we had one orange tree left for us in the front yard. I remember juicing the oranges with the children. It took a lot of elbow grease to get even half a pitcher full. But there’s nothing like drinking it straight off the tree!
Yep, 70's and 80's, lots of freezes killed the groves along with the Mediterranean Fruit Fly. Now it's Citrus Canker though not devastating to citrus, makes the skin look unappealing. (Pun intended)
When I was a kid I remember seeing films in school showing Florida orange groves that had surplus ww2 airplane engines mounted on towers. In cold weather they ran the engines and the props kept the air moving so frost couldn't form on the oranges. I'm guessing they stopped doing this in the '70's when gas prices jumped.
I would turn off my a/c and roll down the windows while driving through Central Florida orange groves. Alas, much of that land has now been developed into housing.
I was 15 when I moved to FL around '83. Not long after, there was a major freeze. We lived right in the front of an orange grove and it looked like hell after that freeze. The smell of rotting oranges was everywhere. Later, many of the trees that died had their root stock start to out grow new branches which produced sour oranges and long thorns.
Mesa Arizona still has some of the first grafts and cuttings of that parent tree still growing as well. Many have been destroyed over building homes but a good number still thrive on.
I'm from riverside they are cutting all the trees down I grew up in these groves . The story wasn't what I was taught they said the trees infront of the riverside library come from asia as well as the monument . Riverside county provided most of the produce for the united states at one time now those areas are being turned into factories covering the grounds that sustained this state for so long it's very disrespectful to me and all the families that worked and preserved this land . Very disappointing my children will never see the beauty of this place that god provided just factories and Edward scissor hand style track homes pitiful!
I totally & completely agree. I still remember picking an orange on my way to work every morning from my neighbor's tree. He didn't like to eat them but loved the smell, so he was always willing to let me have as many as I wanted. A great memory, since he was Hulk Hogan the wrestler :)
I was going to say the same thing. I’m in the Tampa Bay Area and when I drive through central Florida I detour through the groves if they’re in bloom. It’s awesome.
Many don’t know (myself until recently), but citrus is grown successfully on Vancouver Island B.C. In Canada. Because of its mild micro climate it makes a barely viable climate for the fruit to grow. Who’d have thunk it?!?
@privatepilot Vancouver Island has a generally mild climate punctuated by hundreds of microclimate,, some are warming and some are cooling. The areas that can successfully grow citrus the far southeast of the island. There are also lots of palm trees down there. And to the other guy seriously we are hurtling through space on a lumpy chunkie semi molten rock, and for the few million years that humans have dating becoming what we are today the climate has been anything but stable, during the reign of the dinosaurs it was the most constant the planet has ever witnessed.
That was great. However, you narrowly missed one more orange 'factoid': There is a county in southern California named....Orange County! It is indeed named after the fruit, but not because there were extensive orange groves there at the time (the 1880s). Rather, it was named 'Orange County' to promote the notion that the area was a semi-tropical paradise in order to entice settlers to move there. The extensive groves of orange trees came soon after, and later Disneyland would be built on land that was filled with orange trees.
Yes, I thought that Orange County, CA was named for the oranges grown there. But if it was named for the fact that you COULD grow oranges there, even if they weren't actually being grown yet, that's not so different. Orange County, NY, on the other hand, is named for the House of Orange, not the fruit.
A buddy and I at 13 years old decided we should raid a local tiny orange grove, It had eight trees. One night we brought home a sack full of them and the first bite revealed our mistake. Having no idea that bitter oranges existed we feared it was a sign that stealing was bad.....
At Arizona's state houses are/were a bunch of bitter orange trees. The fruit looks like large Cuties and peals easily. My wife picked one up and pealed it. I suspected they were Bitter Orange and my suspicion was confirmed when she bit down. She tried to spit it out but her lips and mouth had seized up. I gave up and busted out laughing. One of the grounds guards saw what was happening and saw how close I was to getting murdered and took my bride to a water fountain. We laugh now and any friends headed there we encourage to try the "free" oranges.
A simple thing like an orange can be so easily taken for granted or the history forgotten or never learned,,, Thank you for this video of the wonderful orange.
A trucker friend of mine told me that he once picked up a load of oranges in California and drove them to Florida, where they were unloaded, the boxes stamped with "Florida Oranges", and loaded back onto the truck. He then drove them to New York, where they were sold as Florida oranges, which apparently command a higher price than California oranges. According to him, it was all perfectly legal because any orange that touches Florida soil can legally be called a Florida orange.
Later in life I learned receiving an orange during the holiday season say 100 years ago was a big deal. Growing and transporting fruit outside of the natural growing season was nearly impossible and only the wealthy could afford such a luxury. Now I know so much more and this small example of history leaves me humbled by how “spoiled” we are in our lives today. Excellent presentation, thank you Mr and Mrs History Guy.
During WW2, ships from Britain still travelled to Spain to pick up Seville oranges so that the British could still have their marmalade at breakfast because marmalade was considered vital to national morale.
Crates of oranges were used as ballast on ship when collecting steel from ports in Uk. Hence marmalade’s invention. Like wise bundles of papers and comics came to Britain as ballast. Nothing was wasted.
As someone who is deeply fond of oranges, I appreciated this episode. I'd like to suggest a potential topic for another video. You mentioned the Sunkist Growers Cooperative, I'd be delighted to see a video on the Fruit Growers Supply Company, Sunkists sister organization, formed by the Sunkist Growers in 1907 to purchase and manage timberlands to produce lumber for fruit boxes during the wood shortage resulting from the rebuilding of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. They managed the same timberlands for over a century in northern California. Anyways, thought I'd make the suggestion.
My Dad worked at the Sunkist packing plant. As a perk they gave you all the oranges you could eat. Great plan. After a couple weeks you didn't want any more oranges. 😂🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊
Here is a Tibbits tidbit. In Riverside CA, up until a couple of years ago, you could go see the two original trees. They were on the corner of Magnolia and Arlington Aves. These are located very close to the location of where the original house stood. Sadly one of the trees succumbed to an illness and died. The remaining tree still lives but is now housed in its own protective enclosure and cannot be seen from the street. In years past you could lean in a pick an orange from the trees that started an orange industry and put Riverside CA on the map!
I lived 2 minutes walk from there! But left after the Chris Dorner rampage. That tree is what got me really into the history of the Washington navel, and oranges in general
It's interesting that the Greek word for orange translates to golden apple. The Italian word for tomato, pomodoro, has the same literal English translation.
In 1967-68, I was a student in France and there was a TV commercial for oranges that had the jingle "Avec une orange, tout s'arrange!" - "With an orange, everything goes all right!". 52 years later, I just cannot get that jingle out of my head! Grrrrr!
I live in Communidad de Valencia, Spain where we have several million orange trees of different varieties, in the last couple of weeks the harvest has begun and will continue until January or February. Some of the best mandarins and clementines in the world grow here and at the street markets when the harvest is at it's height, we buy clementines at three kilos for €2.00. After the guys have done the harvesting just along the road from my house, I usually go along and pick up a lot of the fruits they leave on the ground, they make a fantastic light and fruity orange wine.
I live only a mile from Citrus Park, where many varieties of oranges grow, most are one of a kind hybrids developed by the University. I know one particular tree that grows small oranges that taste so sweet its like eating juicy orange candy, unfortunately it has many seeds.
it still baffles me how a bunch of sooty smoke from a pot keeps trees from freezing, I mean it works or else farmers would not do it but just baffles me.
@@filanfyretracker the effort is to keep liquid part of the fruit from crystalizing/rotting. They also have propellers/fans that blow the air around. 60 miles inland from the coast is a desert, hot days, freezing nights.
Now i finally know why some oranges are green.......grew up surrounded by orange groves, oranges in our backyards and fancy looking orange trees in rich people's gardens. Thanks history guy!
I've worked on one of those orangeries in a historical setting, its quite a soothing experience compared to hustle and bustle of modern day life. Things take time, you have to tend the plants with care and dedication as most of them exceeded my own age by several times, all of them having a historical value through several generations.
On leave in the Army in the 1980's, I semi-randomly chose a "Space Available" destination (Space Available meant, if there was an available seat on a military aircraft, military personal could use it to travel for free). I chose the Navy base in Rota, Spain. I rented a car & drove to Seville, which was only an hour or two away. In Seville I had a wonderful time, & the streets lined with orange trees really stood out. Now I know why that was. Thanks, History Guy!
@@navret1707 No. After I checked in at the NCO Quarters, I went straight to Seville in the rental car. I did meet a girl at the Zodiac Discotecha (or a name close to that), who wanted to fly back to the states w/ me. Even though Seville was only an hour or two away form Rota, I was the first American that many of the people in Seville had met. Although Franco died in the 1970's, his people were still in charge until the early '80's, so when I was there, Spain hadn't really hooked up w/ the rest of Europe, as far as American tourism. For instance, Spain wasn't part of the "Eur-Rail Pass" thing. After leaving Seville, I drove along The Gold Coast. Back then, my life was like a movie, and I was the star. Things just fell into place for me. I often said afterward, that I messed Spain up for all Americans, who came there, after I did! I returned to the naval base. An Air Force C141 crew helped me out by manifesting me as a crew member, so I wouldn't need to wait behind a couple of hundred people waiting for Space Available seats. At the time, the Navy wouldn't allow passengers on cargo flights, and although the C141 was Air Force, it was flying a cargo mission on behalf of the Navy, so it had to follow their rules. I had on my class B wooly pully sweater with my Army sergeant shoulder boards, rather than a flight suit, but I was able to get back stateside, before my leave was up. My kid brother asked me, "What crew member, were you manifested as?". I answered, "Tail Gunner". Sorry, I digress. I never checked out Rota. I guess, I figured, that I'd get out and see Spain, where it might not be as influenced by the military base. Sounds like not hanging around Rota may have saved me a course of anti-biotics!
John McPhee's book 'Oranges' is a great source if you want to explore this subject. It's quite short, but he covers topics like the cross breeding of citrus, the development of frozen orange juice concentrate and the orange's place in various cultures. And he's a great writer,
I’m excited to have seen that photo of the box of oranges from the “Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.” I’m from the Lower RGV and citrus is a big crop for us mostly because of our warm winters.
My sisters and I worked in a couple of health food stores. One of the stores that my one sister managed had a juice presser for fresh orange juice. It was in Headhouse Square in Philadelphia. Locals and tourists would always question the oranges, because they were organic and greenish orange. They would complain that they were not fully matured and she and the others at that store had a tough time convincing them that oranges are normally green in color.
This was fascinating! Especially since I was born and raised in So. Cal. I'm an old-timer, so I fully remember the famous orange crates, and our ranch was full of citrus trees. The fragrance of the blooms during the flowering season is absolutely heady! Thanks THG for a very thorough history of one of my favorite fruits!
The first time I went to Disneyland all we could smell was orange blossom, back when I was a kid Disneyland was still surrounded by orange groves.... Thanks for the video.
Small linguistic curiosity. As a little girl in Chile, that color wasn't called "orange" (naranja), but "salmon" (salmón). It was years later that calling the color by the fruit and not the fish became usual, but still, if being in Chile, you say something is color "salmon" everyone will understand.
Watch The History Guy and never miss a Trivial Pursuit question ever again. I love learning about things I never knew before, and you hit it out of the park just about every time.
I always enjoy “this episode of The History Guy; short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long.” Here’s a suggestion for a future episode: how one Scottish clan chief reshaped his Kilmarnock bonnet (sometimes called a Hummel bonnet) and created a new hat fashion that would at one point be adopted by much of the British army, inspire Native American headwear, women’s fashion, and evolve into the military wedge or side cap.
@@WALTERBROADDUS As well, Indian River Trucking still transports batches of OJ in 7200 gallon tankers to Dairys in New England. While the primary product is of course milk. Orange Juice is bottled as well using the brands equipment and label.
I took a history class in college and the story of orange and Los Angeles continued to fascinate me. Development of orange orchards in the San Fernando valley is intertwined with city government intrigues (the California water war) and massive civil projects (i.e. the LA aqueduct). Without the water brought by the aqueduct, we wouldn't have modern LA, and the orange orchards are partly responsible for these developments.
Well, apparently narwhal blubber contains more vitamin c than oranges, so you could just sail up to the Arctic and trade some of your bounty with the Eskimos.
Great job History Guy. You can find the most interesting things out of the most common items, like the orange. Extremely interesting and now I have even more respect for oranges.
I grew up in Appalachian Ohio in the 60's. I don't know if it was because of cost or availability, but we kids got oranges only once a year, in our Christmas stockings. Even today my brother says that oranges remind him of Christmas.
I found your channel during my last semester of college and watched SOO MANY of your videos that now I can’t watch your videos without being transported back to my old apartment where I heard your voice a million times
I discovered a trifoliate orange tree on the property adjacent to mine several years ago in north Mississippi. It is also known as the Flying Dragon because of the shapes of the branches. It also sports 2-3 inch thorns, which with some careful pruning and training, makes a formidable hedge. Grafting domestic branches onto it gives a hardiness to them to better endure the colder weather. It’s own fruit is a “peach fuzz” covered yellow fruit not much larger than a ping pong ball. Although it smells wonderful, it tastes horrible, not to mention it is about 90% seeds.
Errata: in the segment referring to scurvy deaths during "the age of exploration", the captions called it the " age of *expiration*". Considering that this episode is about oranges, perhaps the captions inadvertently committed a "Floridian slip"!
1956 I got one single orange as birthday present. This was little odd, but this came from older aunt from Northern Finland. Helsinki was full stocked with oranges -- it was later discovered that cheap oranges was a form of American Marshall Aid, as Soviets did not allow direct monetary contributions. Orange boxes were used as return ballast on ships transporting products from Finland.
The name of certain citrus fruits in Persian has its own story. As you said, the names "Narangi" and its derivative "Naranj" are persian names for the "Tangerine" and the "Bitter Orange" respectively, and "Orange" color is called "Narenji" in persian. But the current persian name for the "Orange" fruit, is in fact "Porteghal", and in persian, almost the same word is in use for the country of "Portugal". Even in the literary Arab language, sometimes they call it "Bartaghala" (Arabic pronounciation for the same word "Porteghal"). That's may be because of the fact, that After the capture of the Hormoz Island in the southern Iran by the Portuguese, they began to plant large fields of Orange, as an important resource for their sailors and traders in the persian gulf region, and after the reconquest of the island by iranians some 100 years later, the fruit entered the iran under the name of "Mive ye Porteghali"(Portuguese Fruit), and finally its shorter form "Porteghal". Still there are vast gardens of orange and other citrus fruits in southern iran, and after the second world war and during the expeditions of the US "peace corps", who came to Iran to help the country as a US ally, the cultivation of Orange was began in other parts of the country, including the provinces of "Gilan", "Mazandaran" and "Golestan" on the southern coasts of the Caspian lake.
Though in England the word Maramalade is said to be connected to Mary Queen of Scots. She would eat it sas a headache cure , and her maids would whisper 'Marie est Maldie'.
Being from Riverside I would like everyone to know that the original orange tree is still alive. Called the "parent Washington navel orange tree". It's now protected by a structure to ward off disease.
This is, I think, the fourth fruit history he’s done. Apples, bananas, watermelons were other episodes. I’m surprised he hasn’t done more. Cultivation over the centuries has changed many plants; wheat for example
Here in central Florida, when I was a kid, you could not escape the beautiful aroma of the blossoms, much to the despair of those allergic to it. Now foreign disease has left us with little to show our children and Grandchildren what once was a huge industry here and an aroma that brings back fond memories
Fun fact; in the Dutch language there is no link between color and fruit. There are called "sinaasappel" which translates to "apples from china" from archaic Dutch.
Disney even created a mascot for Florida citrus called the Orange Bird as part of a deal for Florida citrus sponsoring a part of Adventureland at Magic Kingdom
They tried various ways of preserving them including preserving them in alcohol and juicing them and boiling the juice. This destroyed much of the vitamin C. Originally they used lemons which had 2-3 times as much vitamin C but they could source limes cheaper. Then they started using Rose’s Lime Juice, a cordial produced in Scotland. It was only with the isolation and chemical production of ascorbic acid in the late 1920s / early 1930s that scurvy could effectively be prevented.
Sometime between 2003 to 2005 I went to Gran Canaria, Spain and up a mountain were there was a small village next to a small dam. Outside of a village shop were bags of Oranges, some normal sized in bags and small Oranges that were being sold at a much cheaper rate which we bought. Next to the dam were small gnarled orange trees and I thought that was where the Oranges probably came from. When we got back to the apartment we tried them. The skins were hard to remove but once you bit into them the intense orange flavour was amazing. I have never had Oranges like them before or since. We felt that they must be an ancient variety.
Weirdly...or not so weirdly... It is Portakal in Turkish similarly. I've always wondered if it was related to Portugal. Also, the colour orange is called "turuncu" in Turkish which probably derived from the word "Turunç" which means bitter orange... etymology is strange. Thank you History Guy for shedding some light on this subject.
As a native of south Florida I found this episode very interesting, I grew up less than three miles from one of the largest growers and never considered where they originated from. Thank you for the work you do to educate so many on history and interesting facts.
I used to get oranges and nuts in my stocking for Christmas. It was a symbol of wealth. My mother grew up during the Depression. I never understood that til later.
I live in North Florida where for the only citrus that survives cold winters here were kumquats and satsumas. We have newer hybrids like the Meyers lemon that have become popular, but the satsumas, a mandarin orange hybrid is still the most popular.
I travelled to Florida once years ago and had fresh oranges right off the tree. They were so amazingly good compared to what we get at grocery stores in Canada, that I can't eat oranges from the store, although I still drink OJ by the gallon. I'm envious of people who can get fresh oranges. OTOH we get fresh apples which are, compared to grocery store apples like you're oranges compared to ours.
THG delivers a history of the orange and two facts/stories connect with me straight away.. Dundee is where my family lived for a short time and we still live in the area today. Keillor (pronounced ‘KEELER’ by Dundee folks) was part of every day life and marmalade and ‘jams’ of all persuasions were sold by this iconic brand. Not sure if it’s still trading today I should maybe Google that?🤔 You also Mentioned Andalucía Spain’s most populace province. Now noted for growing Olives you cannot walk in any town or pueblo there without passing orange tees, on the footpaths providing shelter ( to some degree) from the sun’s rays. Andalucía is best pronounced ‘ANDA LOO THEE AH’. I spent 10.5 years of my life living and working there. My family is from Scotland and England but my heart is ‘Andalusian’. Returning to the UK 2 years ago was the hardest choice in my life and watching Spain disappear from the stern of a ship was emotional. But I can return. My family is in Scotland ..
My favorite is the "Arizona Sweet" variety developed for the frozen orange juice market. Yes it has seeds, but really grows well in my backyard. To get larger oranges, you do have to limit the number produced (also to prevent the branches from breaking on young trees). The fragrance of an orange blossom is quite pleasant. Perfect for the backyard, and also encourages hummingbirds and bees.
I model the Tropicana Orange Juice train in HO scale. While doing research on the train, I read an article from the 90s saying that while the average American drank 7.5 gallons of orange juice a year, the average New Yorker drank 12 gallons a year. This justified the regular train as well as two tanker ships devoted entirely to shipping orange juice to New York.
It is a commonly said thing, but it seems unlikely. The Orange-white-Blue tricolour was used for quite some time by the Prinfe of Orange. The Red-White-Blue tricolour was used in Holland initially and later was adopted by the States-General while they controlled the country with no Stadtholder from the House of Orange. After William III became Stadtholder, the Prince’s government tricolour with orange continued in regular usage alongside the red one with shifts in popularity over time. That doesn’t seem to align with an issue of dyes. In that case you would expect a brief period of orange and then a shift over to red.
Wasn't the orange-white-blue flag disbanded because the "Nationaal-Socialistische Bond" waved it around or something along those lines? And we didn't wanted to be associated with them after the war?
Another fantastic episode about something we take for granted. If you liked this you’ll love the book Oranges, written the great nonfiction writer, John McPhee.
I have a few orange trees growing, indoors naturally, here in Vermont. I don't ever expect to see fruit yet it is fascinating to see these beautiful little trees grow from the seeds of store bought oranges.
Just when you think he's explored most of the interesting potential subjects, he comes up with something new. Thank U THG! I mean really, who'da thunk it? Oranges!
I harvested my first 'crop' of 4 lemons from my Meyer lemon tree. I live in central Missouri and protected the tree from frost by bringing it inside. I believe the Dutch did that with oranges, the planters that the trees grew in had wheels and the growers brought them inside when the weather turned cold.
Well, this Texas Longhorn salutes your burnt orange Longhorn bow tie. Incidentally, burnt orange is a 50/50 mixture of magenta and mustard colored inks.
So, "orange" is a relatively new color name, thanks to oranges. Cool. You could follow up with the history of "brown," which is not a distinct color at all. (Spoiler: it's just a shade of orange. Even the Merriam-Webster dictionary says so: "...between red and yellow in hue, of medium to low lightness, and of moderate to low saturation.") You can paste a snippet of brown into any photo editor and turn it orange simply by upping the brightness and contrast (the contrast also increases saturation). I just double checked by pasting the thumbnail of your Chocolate video into Word, right-clicking and selecting Format Picture / Picture (or Picture Corrections) and goosing brightness and contrast. The result looks just like a perfect artificially-colored orange peel.
I am very reminded of a wonderful episode in my life. Early in my grip truck career in NYC I was hired to travel with a Brazilian Film Crew hired to make a corporate documentary of Orange Juice, what happened to oranges grown in Brazil. I say I had lived to be hired in the morning and leave in the afternoon for travel through three states seeking out and filming huge tanks similar to the fuel tanks at airports. It is an amazing thing to see a container the size of a water tower full of orange juice. The Brazilians I worked with had been made sad because it had not been long since they too had been disappeared as had Argentinians. Americans like myself were young and vaguely aware of military dictatorships in South America, but mostly happy in our ignorance. Even today in the US disappeared isn't a prevalent tactic used to silence us. Trump fires people. Loss of your livelihood can lead to a lot less food. I believe one of the Producers was named Du Du. I was shocked in Connecticut at the racism exhibited at a roadside restaurant towards my Brazilian friends. I had grown up in North Carolina and idealized society above the Mason Dixon. There are huge vats of Orange Juice in our world. I wish I had seen the movie.
Oranges used to be a once-a-year, Christmas-stocking treat. My Dad lived in High Bridge, KY. He told me how a train car full of Blue Goose oranges derailed on the bridge itself, spilling crates of oranges 300' into the river. Most burst, but he "borrowed" the use of a nearby rowboat, and soon had enough crates of oranges that they were giving oranges away to just anyone... Then there was the time a carload of truck engines derailed nearby- those got bulldozed and buried, in a hurry. They couldn't use them in new trucks, and didn't want free new truck engines around competing with them...
Absolutely love the history videos on fruits, vegetables, and domestic animals! For a suggestion you should do a video on the history of Victorian era dog breeding. A lot of are dogs breeds come from that point in history and I think it would make for a fun video topic :)
I remember during one of my first winters in Greece seeing orange trees weighed down with fruit up in the mountain, even though it was bitterly cold and thee was plenty of snow on the ground. A real surprize for someone who had till then thought that they were a summer fruit.
As a Chinese, oranges are important to my culture. Our translation of the word orange is similar to our word for wealth. I eat oranges during Chinese New Year for good prosperity. Also, I don't throw away the peeled skin, I keep it t dry and use it as an ingredient for some soups and other stuff.
Yeah, but the flavor isn't great. Give me Valencia or a blood orange any day. I will buy bitter oranges before Navels, since they at least have flavor with which I can cook.
Yes, it is true that commercially grown navels usually have a poor flavor as they have been bred to withstand the battering that they take in shipment. However, there are varieties bred for the home gardener that are out of this world-sweet and bursting with outstanding flavor.
I remember how stunned I was when I first heard "orange" pronounced as you do - it was on an Anita Bryant commercial for orange juice. In New England, we said "AH-range", closer to what you hear in the Snow Crop commercial. Now my pronunciation has been lost with TV using the other one, and though we still live in New England, my kids say "OR-ange" and laugh at me. "AH-range" - forgotten history that deserves to be remembered!
The same thing happened in the Los Angeles basin. They moved them over the mountains to Bakersfield. Some old episodes of "Highway Patrol" with Broderick Crawford, show the San Fernando Valley still covered in orange groves. When I was a kid, we used to get 120+ oranges (120 or more oranges in a 40 lb box) for $2.50 from the Sunkist packing house and use them for juice. I always wondered why they sold frozen orange juice that was more expensive than fresh. lol
I lived in Deland, Fl. late 70's in the late fall the entire town was basted in orange blossom scent ...it was wonderful...now they are all gone and it's buildings and roads
That’s interesting. What are they growing now. Here in the Texas hill country they used to rave about Fredericksburg peaches. It’s still kind of a big deal. You used to see peach groves everywhere. But now, all those peach groves are now vineyards. I guess wine is more profitable than peaches.
@@dano336 In southern California they used to have all the lemon groves near the ocean since they were more sensitive to freezing than oranges. If a hard freeze comes when the lemon trees are in bloom, you can lose the whole crop. The warmer Pacific Ocean kept that area from freezing. Those giant lemon groves when they were in full bloom smelled so good. Unfortunately they're gone now too and the land is covered with multi-million dollar houses now...
Growing up in the 50's & 60's, my Christmas stocking always had nuts and an orange. It was the only time of year that we got them (tho we had the frozen juice sometimes). I did the same thing for my son, until a few years ago when he asked why did he always have an orange and some nuts in his stocking (he still gets a stocking, even as an adult), and I explained that they were special for Christmas. We discussed it a bit, and of course, his whole life he had eaten oranges and nuts all year; they're no big deal. While I'm grateful to be in a country where we can have pretty much any food we want, at any time, it is too bad that nothing is special any more. I still put an orange and nuts in his stocking, though. It's special to me.
My folks did the same
@@timgelder4263 mine as well
@@jst7714 mine too.
We would have a mandarine orange (from?), which was a rare treat at the time. Even now, they seem to be unavailable in the US, apparently because of lobbying by California orange growers.
In the South we got oranges year-round but tangerines were special. They still remind me of Christmas more than any other taste or aroma
My dad, and his father and three brothers were growers in Riverside in the early days. Dad grew for Sunkist for a time too. We lit smudge pots and ran wind machines in the winters to prevent the crops from freezing. The parent navel orange tree is still alive in Riverside. Thank you for this video, HG!
I used to haul oranges from California to Texas and oranges from Texas to California and Oregon.
Crazy
I grew up in Riverside, CA in the '60s when the citrus industry was still an important part of the local economy (the school colors of the oldest high school in town are orange and green). We were taught about Eliza Tibbets in elementary school, and were taken on a field trip to see the "Parent Navel Orange Tree" (one of the trees from her original small grove) that is a national landmark. One of my strongest, and fondest, memories from childhood is the smell of orange blossoms mingled with the smog that was so prevalent in those days. Sadly, a "perfect storm" of increasing demand for housing, aging groves that were going to need to be replanted, and increasing water prices that made profitability difficult, spelled the end of nearly all the commercial citrus farming in the area. A "Citrus Heritage Park" was created so that our following generations can witness a recreation of our lost heritage...
When my family moved to Orange County, CA in the late 60's our house was in a tract that had once been an orange grove. Most everyone in the neighborhood had at least one orange tree on their property. We had three. Occasionally we'd pick oranges in the morning and juice them for breakfast. Over time the trees were removed, either being cut down for landscaping or dying off from lack of care. When we left California about six years ago there was only one left and it still produced lots of oranges.
In 1960 I visited relatives who moved from Chicago to Anaheim. It seemed there were orange groves everywhere. When I visited in 1967 the orange groves were mostly all gone!
As a kid growing up in Florida, I remember the devastating freezes that killed off many orange trees. Some growers sold their land for other use. In fact, the home I live in now was once an orange grove and we had one orange tree left for us in the front yard. I remember juicing the oranges with the children. It took a lot of elbow grease to get even half a pitcher full. But there’s nothing like drinking it straight off the tree!
It’s the best aroma when they are in bloom. I’m in the Tampa Bay Area.
Yep, 70's and 80's, lots of freezes killed the groves along with the Mediterranean Fruit Fly. Now it's Citrus Canker though not devastating to citrus, makes the skin look unappealing. (Pun intended)
When I was a kid I remember seeing films in school showing Florida orange groves that had surplus ww2 airplane engines mounted on towers. In cold weather they ran the engines and the props kept the air moving so frost couldn't form on the oranges. I'm guessing they stopped doing this in the '70's when gas prices jumped.
I would turn off my a/c and roll down the windows while driving through Central Florida orange groves. Alas, much of that land has now been developed into housing.
I was 15 when I moved to FL around '83. Not long after, there was a major freeze. We lived right in the front of an orange grove and it looked like hell after that freeze. The smell of rotting oranges was everywhere. Later, many of the trees that died had their root stock start to out grow new branches which produced sour oranges and long thorns.
Riverside native here. The parent naval orange tree is still growing behind an iron fence next to a busy intersection and is a historic landmark.
Riverside native as well. :)
I lived in Riverside but no native. Lived in Huntington Beach as well.
Mesa Arizona still has some of the first grafts and cuttings of that parent tree still growing as well.
Many have been destroyed over building homes but a good number still thrive on.
I'm from riverside they are cutting all the trees down I grew up in these groves . The story wasn't what I was taught they said the trees infront of the riverside library come from asia as well as the monument . Riverside county provided most of the produce for the united states at one time now those areas are being turned into factories covering the grounds that sustained this state for so long it's very disrespectful to me and all the families that worked and preserved this land . Very disappointing my children will never see the beauty of this place that god provided just factories and Edward scissor hand style track homes pitiful!
@@topcatseriosblack8396 aye, Riverside is fucking dump now
When the orange groves in FL are in bloom, the aroma is absolutely wonderful.
I agree...if only the factory's that make orange juice could share the same aroma ☹️
The same in California. It's intoxicating. Better than roses in my opinion.
I totally & completely agree. I still remember picking an orange on my way to work every morning from my neighbor's tree. He didn't like to eat them but loved the smell, so he was always willing to let me have as many as I wanted. A great memory, since he was Hulk Hogan the wrestler :)
I was going to say the same thing. I’m in the Tampa Bay Area and when I drive through central Florida I detour through the groves if they’re in bloom. It’s awesome.
Especially when blended with the meth.
Many don’t know (myself until recently), but citrus is grown successfully on Vancouver Island B.C. In Canada. Because of its mild micro climate it makes a barely viable climate for the fruit to grow. Who’d have thunk it?!?
Climate change would think it. Vineyards now merrily grow in England where it was too cold to do so until recent times.
@privatepilot
Vancouver Island has a generally mild climate punctuated by hundreds of microclimate,, some are warming and some are cooling. The areas that can successfully grow citrus the far southeast of the island. There are also lots of palm trees down there.
And to the other guy seriously we are hurtling through space on a lumpy chunkie semi molten rock, and for the few million years that humans have dating becoming what we are today the climate has been anything but stable, during the reign of the dinosaurs it was the most constant the planet has ever witnessed.
Please🙏 consider reading just a little bit about global warming from a science source. Try Bill Nye the Science Guy. He will tell you what is real.
That was great. However, you narrowly missed one more orange 'factoid': There is a county in southern California named....Orange County! It is indeed named after the fruit, but not because there were extensive orange groves there at the time (the 1880s). Rather, it was named 'Orange County' to promote the notion that the area was a semi-tropical paradise in order to entice settlers to move there. The extensive groves of orange trees came soon after, and later Disneyland would be built on land that was filled with orange trees.
I've lived here in the OC for about 20 years and didn't know that. Thank you!
There is an Orange County in NC....most expensive county to live in. Chapel Hill area where Duke University and UNC are located.
Yes, I thought that Orange County, CA was named for the oranges grown there. But if it was named for the fact that you COULD grow oranges there, even if they weren't actually being grown yet, that's not so different. Orange County, NY, on the other hand, is named for the House of Orange, not the fruit.
A buddy and I at 13 years old decided we should raid a local tiny orange grove, It had eight trees. One night we brought home a sack full of them and the first bite revealed our mistake. Having no idea that bitter oranges existed we feared it was a sign that stealing was bad.....
You didn't get any indicators that it was bad before??
Cant fix stupid
At Arizona's state houses are/were a bunch of bitter orange trees. The fruit looks like large Cuties and peals easily. My wife picked one up and pealed it. I suspected they were Bitter Orange and my suspicion was confirmed when she bit down. She tried to spit it out but her lips and mouth had seized up.
I gave up and busted out laughing. One of the grounds guards saw what was happening and saw how close I was to getting murdered and took my bride to a water fountain.
We laugh now and any friends headed there we encourage to try the "free" oranges.
@@NathanDudani No,they looked like an orange tree with bright oranges ...
@@jeanbaptistevallee4500 stealing, not the type of oranges 😂
A simple thing like an orange can be so easily taken for granted or the history forgotten or never learned,,, Thank you for this video of the wonderful orange.
A trucker friend of mine told me that he once picked up a load of oranges in California and drove them to Florida, where they were unloaded, the boxes stamped with "Florida Oranges", and loaded back onto the truck. He then drove them to New York, where they were sold as Florida oranges, which apparently command a higher price than California oranges. According to him, it was all perfectly legal because any orange that touches Florida soil can legally be called a Florida orange.
Later in life I learned receiving an orange during the holiday season say 100 years ago was a big deal. Growing and transporting fruit outside of the natural growing season was nearly impossible and only the wealthy could afford such a luxury. Now I know so much more and this small example of history leaves me humbled by how “spoiled” we are in our lives today. Excellent presentation, thank you Mr and Mrs History Guy.
During WW2, ships from Britain still travelled to Spain to pick up Seville oranges so that the British could still have their marmalade at breakfast because marmalade was considered vital to national morale.
So that's why the Spanish didn't join the Axis!
"And that's why they call me Francisco Franc-orange." -Franco, probably
Probably vital vitamin "c" , too
Crates of oranges were used as ballast on ship when collecting steel from ports in Uk. Hence marmalade’s invention. Like wise bundles of papers and comics came to Britain as ballast. Nothing was wasted.
As someone who is deeply fond of oranges, I appreciated this episode. I'd like to suggest a potential topic for another video. You mentioned the Sunkist Growers Cooperative, I'd be delighted to see a video on the Fruit Growers Supply Company, Sunkists sister organization, formed by the Sunkist Growers in 1907 to purchase and manage timberlands to produce lumber for fruit boxes during the wood shortage resulting from the rebuilding of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. They managed the same timberlands for over a century in northern California. Anyways, thought I'd make the suggestion.
My Dad worked at the Sunkist packing plant. As a perk they gave you all the oranges you could eat. Great plan. After a couple weeks you didn't want any more oranges. 😂🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊
Here is a Tibbits tidbit. In Riverside CA, up until a couple of years ago, you could go see the two original trees. They were on the corner of Magnolia and Arlington Aves. These are located very close to the location of where the original house stood. Sadly one of the trees succumbed to an illness and died. The remaining tree still lives but is now housed in its own protective enclosure and cannot be seen from the street. In years past you could lean in a pick an orange from the trees that started an orange industry and put Riverside CA on the map!
I was scared of taking the oranges. Like stealing from a living history museum.
Wow. Would love to see that.
I lived 2 minutes walk from there! But left after the Chris Dorner rampage. That tree is what got me really into the history of the Washington navel, and oranges in general
Mama mama ko mama mama Enjoy mama mama ko mama mama girl mama mama ko mama
It's interesting that the Greek word for orange translates to golden apple. The Italian word for tomato, pomodoro, has the same literal English translation.
In 1967-68, I was a student in France and there was a TV commercial for oranges that had the jingle "Avec une orange, tout s'arrange!" - "With an orange, everything goes all right!". 52 years later, I just cannot get that jingle out of my head! Grrrrr!
I live in Communidad de Valencia, Spain where we have several million orange trees of different varieties, in the last couple of weeks the harvest has begun and will continue until January or February.
Some of the best mandarins and clementines in the world grow here and at the street markets when the harvest is at it's height, we buy clementines at three kilos for €2.00.
After the guys have done the harvesting just along the road from my house, I usually go along and pick up a lot of the fruits they leave on the ground, they make a fantastic light and fruity orange wine.
Here in Australia the Valencia is at its best now.
I live only a mile from Citrus Park, where many varieties of oranges grow, most are one of a kind hybrids developed by the University. I know one particular tree that grows small oranges that taste so sweet its like eating juicy orange candy, unfortunately it has many seeds.
One of my first jobs in Riverside Ca. was to get up whenever there was a freeze alert and go out and light the smudge pots.
it still baffles me how a bunch of sooty smoke from a pot keeps trees from freezing, I mean it works or else farmers would not do it but just baffles me.
@@filanfyretracker the effort is to keep liquid part of the fruit from crystalizing/rotting. They also have propellers/fans that blow the air around. 60 miles inland from the coast is a desert, hot days, freezing nights.
Now i finally know why some oranges are green.......grew up surrounded by orange groves, oranges in our backyards and fancy looking orange trees in rich people's gardens. Thanks history guy!
I've worked on one of those orangeries in a historical setting, its quite a soothing experience compared to hustle and bustle of modern day life. Things take time, you have to tend the plants with care and dedication as most of them exceeded my own age by several times, all of them having a historical value through several generations.
John McPhee wrote an excellent book on oranges. Well worth reading.
On leave in the Army in the 1980's, I semi-randomly chose a "Space Available" destination (Space Available meant, if there was an available seat on a military aircraft, military personal could use it to travel for free). I chose the Navy base in Rota, Spain. I rented a car & drove to Seville, which was only an hour or two away.
In Seville I had a wonderful time, & the streets lined with orange trees really stood out. Now I know why that was. Thanks, History Guy!
Sparky, did you go “Rotarooting”? Eastern version of the PI.
@@navret1707 No. After I checked in at the NCO Quarters, I went straight to Seville in the rental car. I did meet a girl at the Zodiac Discotecha (or a name close to that), who wanted to fly back to the states w/ me.
Even though Seville was only an hour or two away form Rota, I was the first American that many of the people in Seville had met. Although Franco died in the 1970's, his people were still in charge until the early '80's, so when I was there, Spain hadn't really hooked up w/ the rest of Europe, as far as American tourism. For instance, Spain wasn't part of the "Eur-Rail Pass" thing. After leaving Seville, I drove along The Gold Coast. Back then, my life was like a movie, and I was the star. Things just fell into place for me. I often said afterward, that I messed Spain up for all Americans, who came there, after I did!
I returned to the naval base. An Air Force C141 crew helped me out by manifesting me as a crew member, so I wouldn't need to wait behind a couple of hundred people waiting for Space Available seats. At the time, the Navy wouldn't allow passengers on cargo flights, and although the C141 was Air Force, it was flying a cargo mission on behalf of the Navy, so it had to follow their rules. I had on my class B wooly pully sweater with my Army sergeant shoulder boards, rather than a flight suit, but I was able to get back stateside, before my leave was up. My kid brother asked me, "What crew member, were you manifested as?". I answered, "Tail Gunner".
Sorry, I digress. I never checked out Rota. I guess, I figured, that I'd get out and see Spain, where it might not be as influenced by the military base. Sounds like not hanging around Rota may have saved me a course of anti-biotics!
Again, the comforting contrast of this program with current events provides a soul-soothing relief that I appreciate more and more.
John McPhee's book 'Oranges' is a great source if you want to explore this subject. It's quite short, but he covers topics like the cross breeding of citrus, the development of frozen orange juice concentrate and the orange's place in various cultures. And he's a great writer,
I’m excited to have seen that photo of the box of oranges from the “Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.” I’m from the Lower RGV and citrus is a big crop for us mostly because of our warm winters.
My sisters and I worked in a couple of health food stores. One of the stores that my one sister managed had a juice presser for fresh orange juice. It was in Headhouse Square in Philadelphia. Locals and tourists would always question the oranges, because they were organic and greenish orange. They would complain that they were not fully matured and she and the others at that store had a tough time convincing them that oranges are normally green in color.
I loved this episode on the Orange. My Grandpa was part of Sunkist from the beginning until he retired, which was over 50 years.
This was fascinating! Especially since I was born and raised in So. Cal. I'm an old-timer, so I fully remember the famous orange crates, and our ranch was full of citrus trees. The fragrance of the blooms during the flowering season is absolutely heady! Thanks THG for a very thorough history of one of my favorite fruits!
The first time I went to Disneyland all we could smell was orange blossom, back when I was a kid Disneyland was still surrounded by orange groves.... Thanks for the video.
Small linguistic curiosity. As a little girl in Chile, that color wasn't called "orange" (naranja), but "salmon" (salmón). It was years later that calling the color by the fruit and not the fish became usual, but still, if being in Chile, you say something is color "salmon" everyone will understand.
The difference in taste is interesting. I learned why fresh is always best and cost more.
Also, it's cool that the fruit came before the color 🍊
Watch The History Guy and never miss a Trivial Pursuit question ever again.
I love learning about things I never knew before, and you hit it out of the park just about every time.
I always enjoy “this episode of The History Guy; short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long.”
Here’s a suggestion for a future episode: how one Scottish clan chief reshaped his Kilmarnock bonnet (sometimes called a Hummel bonnet) and created a new hat fashion that would at one point be adopted by much of the British army, inspire Native American headwear, women’s fashion, and evolve into the military wedge or side cap.
As a longtime Florida resident, this episode has a lot of a-peel.
From florida eh? Crack much?
@@hamdanaziz1809 what does that mean?
Orange you glad you watched?
@@hamdanaziz1809 Cocaine and crack are so 1980s. It's all about the bath salts these days.
nice pun !
A missed bit of history is how Tropicana Orange Juice was the first company to have refrigerated ships to take orange juice to New York from Florida.
They use trains now. I still see freight cars for Tropicana weekly pass through Philadelphia.
@@WALTERBROADDUS As well, Indian River Trucking still transports batches of OJ in 7200 gallon tankers to Dairys in New England. While the primary product is of course milk. Orange Juice is bottled as well using the brands equipment and label.
I took a history class in college and the story of orange and Los Angeles continued to fascinate me. Development of orange orchards in the San Fernando valley is intertwined with city government intrigues (the California water war) and massive civil projects (i.e. the LA aqueduct). Without the water brought by the aqueduct, we wouldn't have modern LA, and the orange orchards are partly responsible for these developments.
I have a citrus allergy and it really held me back from my dreams of being a 17th century pirate.
AArrrgh, science be a harsh mistress.
Well, apparently narwhal blubber contains more vitamin c than oranges, so you could just sail up to the Arctic and trade some of your bounty with the Eskimos.
Because don't all good stories involve Pirates?
@@davidstoyanoff Thank you!
Danish, German and Dutch ships used sauerkraut instead of oranges to prevent scurvy.
Great job History Guy. You can find the most interesting things out of the most common items, like the orange. Extremely interesting and now I have even more respect for oranges.
I grew up in Appalachian Ohio in the 60's. I don't know if it was because of cost or availability, but we kids got oranges only once a year, in our Christmas stockings. Even today my brother says that oranges remind him of Christmas.
Would you consider doing a video about TV dinners? They were such a big treat growing up! I’d love to know the history behind them.
I found your channel during my last semester of college and watched SOO MANY of your videos that now I can’t watch your videos without being transported back to my old apartment where I heard your voice a million times
I discovered a trifoliate orange tree on the property adjacent to mine several years ago in north Mississippi. It is also known as the Flying Dragon because of the shapes of the branches. It also sports 2-3 inch thorns, which with some careful pruning and training, makes a formidable hedge. Grafting domestic branches onto it gives a hardiness to them to better endure the colder weather. It’s own fruit is a “peach fuzz” covered yellow fruit not much larger than a ping pong ball. Although it smells wonderful, it tastes horrible, not to mention it is about 90% seeds.
Errata: in the segment referring to scurvy deaths during "the age of exploration", the captions called it the " age of *expiration*". Considering that this episode is about oranges, perhaps the captions inadvertently committed a "Floridian slip"!
Good.
1956 I got one single orange as birthday present. This was little odd, but this came from older aunt from Northern Finland. Helsinki was full stocked with oranges -- it was later discovered that cheap oranges was a form of American Marshall Aid, as Soviets did not allow direct monetary contributions. Orange boxes were used as return ballast on ships transporting products from Finland.
HG, I love your episodes that explore how the search-development of foods and their marketing have affected our history and even today’s life.
The name of certain citrus fruits in Persian has its own story. As you said, the names "Narangi" and its derivative "Naranj" are persian names for the "Tangerine" and the "Bitter Orange" respectively, and "Orange" color is called "Narenji" in persian.
But the current persian name for the "Orange" fruit, is in fact "Porteghal", and in persian, almost the same word is in use for the country of "Portugal". Even in the literary Arab language, sometimes they call it "Bartaghala" (Arabic pronounciation for the same word "Porteghal").
That's may be because of the fact, that After the capture of the Hormoz Island in the southern Iran by the Portuguese, they began to plant large fields of Orange, as an important resource for their sailors and traders in the persian gulf region, and after the reconquest of the island by iranians some 100 years later, the fruit entered the iran under the name of "Mive ye Porteghali"(Portuguese Fruit), and finally its shorter form "Porteghal".
Still there are vast gardens of orange and other citrus fruits in southern iran, and after the second world war and during the expeditions of the US "peace corps", who came to Iran to help the country as a US ally, the cultivation of Orange was began in other parts of the country, including the provinces of "Gilan", "Mazandaran" and "Golestan" on the southern coasts of the Caspian lake.
Narangi is Sanskrit, not persian
"English marmalade...spread across the Mediterranean." Punny, subtle, too, but I caught it. Sweet !
That should be a sticky post.
Though in England the word Maramalade is said to be connected to Mary Queen of Scots. She would eat it sas a headache cure , and her maids would whisper 'Marie est Maldie'.
Being from Riverside I would like everyone to know that the original orange tree is still alive. Called the "parent Washington navel orange tree". It's now protected by a structure to ward off disease.
@@51WCDodge that headache problem was solved quite permanently on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I ...
Spread all the way from Gibraltar to Cyprus...
This did my soul a lot of good today. Thank you. Blessings to you all.
HAD NEVER EVEN THOUGHT IT COULD BE SO HISTORIC THANKS .
This is, I think, the fourth fruit history he’s done. Apples, bananas, watermelons were other episodes. I’m surprised he hasn’t done more. Cultivation over the centuries has changed many plants; wheat for example
Here in central Florida, when I was a kid, you could not escape the beautiful aroma of the blossoms, much to the despair of those allergic to it. Now foreign disease has left us with little to show our children and Grandchildren what once was a huge industry here and an aroma that brings back fond memories
Fun fact; in the Dutch language there is no link between color and fruit. There are called "sinaasappel" which translates to "apples from china" from archaic Dutch.
Disney even created a mascot for Florida citrus called the Orange Bird as part of a deal for Florida citrus sponsoring a part of Adventureland at Magic Kingdom
Thanks Kim!
Who told you that? Dennis?
I remember that "bird". Green leaf wings, orange body
HG, this piece reminded me of a ? How did the UK navy keep limes edible on long voyages to prevent scurvy impacting their « limey » sailors?
They tried various ways of preserving them including preserving them in alcohol and juicing them and boiling the juice. This destroyed much of the vitamin C. Originally they used lemons which had 2-3 times as much vitamin C but they could source limes cheaper. Then they started using Rose’s Lime Juice, a cordial produced in Scotland. It was only with the isolation and chemical production of ascorbic acid in the late 1920s / early 1930s that scurvy could effectively be prevented.
Sometime between 2003 to 2005 I went to Gran Canaria, Spain and up a mountain were there was a small village next to a small dam. Outside of a village shop were bags of Oranges, some normal sized in bags and small Oranges that were being sold at a much cheaper rate which we bought. Next to the dam were small gnarled orange trees and I thought that was where the Oranges probably came from. When we got back to the apartment we tried them. The skins were hard to remove but once you bit into them the intense orange flavour was amazing. I have never had Oranges like them before or since. We felt that they must be an ancient variety.
Fun fact, the Portugues introduced Oranges to the Greek, who named the fruit "Portukáli" www.indifferentlanguages.com/words/orange/greek
Weirdly...or not so weirdly... It is Portakal in Turkish similarly. I've always wondered if it was related to Portugal. Also, the colour orange is called "turuncu" in Turkish which probably derived from the word "Turunç" which means bitter orange... etymology is strange. Thank you History Guy for shedding some light on this subject.
Very interesting! Thanks HG! Enjoying my Mandarins right now! 2 trees that prolifically provide the sweetest fruit!
As a native of south Florida I found this episode very interesting, I grew up less than three miles from one of the largest growers and never considered where they originated from.
Thank you for the work you do to educate so many on history and interesting facts.
I used to get oranges and nuts in my stocking for Christmas. It was a symbol of wealth. My mother grew up during the Depression. I never understood that til later.
@Cat Magic Well not eliminated just scaled back.
Oranges are green, carrots are purple, and with great stories on here, even the grey sky is blue. :)
I live in North Florida where for the only citrus that survives cold winters here were kumquats and satsumas. We have newer hybrids like the Meyers lemon that have become popular, but the satsumas, a mandarin orange hybrid is still the most popular.
I travelled to Florida once years ago and had fresh oranges right off the tree. They were so amazingly good compared to what we get at grocery stores in Canada, that I can't eat oranges from the store, although I still drink OJ by the gallon. I'm envious of people who can get fresh oranges. OTOH we get fresh apples which are, compared to grocery store apples like you're oranges compared to ours.
@@minuteman4199 True that!
Now, orange you glad you watched this? Love the channel HG!!
THG delivers a history of the orange and two facts/stories connect with me straight away.. Dundee is where my family lived for a short time and we still live in the area today. Keillor (pronounced ‘KEELER’ by Dundee folks) was part of every day life and marmalade and ‘jams’ of all persuasions were sold by this iconic brand. Not sure if it’s still trading today I should maybe Google that?🤔 You also Mentioned Andalucía Spain’s most populace province. Now noted for growing Olives you cannot walk in any town or pueblo there without passing orange tees, on the footpaths providing shelter ( to some degree) from the sun’s rays. Andalucía is best pronounced ‘ANDA LOO THEE AH’. I spent 10.5 years of my life living and working there. My family is from Scotland and England but my heart is ‘Andalusian’. Returning to the UK 2 years ago was the hardest choice in my life and watching Spain disappear from the stern of a ship was emotional. But I can return. My family is in Scotland ..
My favorite is the "Arizona Sweet" variety developed for the frozen orange juice market. Yes it has seeds, but really grows well in my backyard. To get larger oranges, you do have to limit the number produced (also to prevent the branches from breaking on young trees). The fragrance of an orange blossom is quite pleasant. Perfect for the backyard, and also encourages hummingbirds and bees.
I model the Tropicana Orange Juice train in HO scale. While doing research on the train, I read an article from the 90s saying that while the average American drank 7.5 gallons of orange juice a year, the average New Yorker drank 12 gallons a year. This justified the regular train as well as two tanker ships devoted entirely to shipping orange juice to New York.
The Netherlands national flag was changed to red, white and blue stripes because they couldn't develop a stable orange-coloured dye.
And where were the mixers of cinnabar and ochre?
It is a commonly said thing, but it seems unlikely. The Orange-white-Blue tricolour was used for quite some time by the Prinfe of Orange. The Red-White-Blue tricolour was used in Holland initially and later was adopted by the States-General while they controlled the country with no Stadtholder from the House of Orange.
After William III became Stadtholder, the Prince’s government tricolour with orange continued in regular usage alongside the red one with shifts in popularity over time.
That doesn’t seem to align with an issue of dyes. In that case you would expect a brief period of orange and then a shift over to red.
@@88porpoise ui bug won’t let me like your comment but thanks for the info
@@88porpoise we have the tricolour with Green White and Orange devised in 1848 in Ireland and our National flag since independence
Wasn't the orange-white-blue flag disbanded because the "Nationaal-Socialistische Bond" waved it around or something along those lines? And we didn't wanted to be associated with them after the war?
What an excellent recap of history I love oranges and I’ve been around since they first made frozen orange juice wow
Scurvy and no mention of pirates?
Argh!
Perhaps THG forgot that every good story includes pirates.
All good stories involve pirates, not all fruit stories....
@@amadeusamwater being a true pirate I have to inform you guys that a pirate's favorite letter is not ARG h! It's arrrrr, matey!
@@rufust.firefly2474 I knew that. Nor did all pirates have parrots. Some had monkeys.
Another fantastic episode about something we take for granted. If you liked this you’ll love the book Oranges, written the great nonfiction writer, John McPhee.
FYI: The "Golden Apples" you talked about were most likely quinces, not oranges.
I just can’t tell you how I appreciate the variety of topics in your episodes. Another success- thank you, it was very interesting!
Thanks again for another great episode.
I have a few orange trees growing, indoors naturally, here in Vermont. I don't ever expect to see fruit yet it is fascinating to see these beautiful little trees grow from the seeds of store bought oranges.
I couldn’t be happier to have a fruitful episode!!!
THG, peeling away the layers of history once again!
I love oranges and they're a favourite fruit off mine, this is now one off my favourite videos from you!
Just when you think he's explored most of the interesting potential subjects, he comes up with something new. Thank U THG!
I mean really, who'da thunk it? Oranges!
You read my mind
THG just proves we take so much stuff for granted that we never think of it, or even realize it could be interesting. Well done....again sir!
THuG life! Lol
I harvested my first 'crop' of 4 lemons from my Meyer lemon tree. I live in central Missouri and protected the tree from frost by bringing it inside. I believe the Dutch did that with oranges, the planters that the trees grew in had wheels and the growers brought them inside when the weather turned cold.
Well, this Texas Longhorn salutes your burnt orange Longhorn bow tie. Incidentally, burnt orange is a 50/50 mixture of magenta and mustard colored inks.
Very interesting video today! Thanks for reminding us how interesting history really is!
Kieller - Pronounced "Keeler" locally in Dundee and generally in the UK.
Quite! It sounds very grating as Kiler!
I grow lemons in Missouri. I have to bring the tree indoors during winter. The Meyer Lemon grows well in pots and the fruit makes very good lemonade.
The fountains in the pic at 6:26 made me wonder about how fountains were powered before electricity. There's one for ya History Guy.
So, "orange" is a relatively new color name, thanks to oranges. Cool. You could follow up with the history of "brown," which is not a distinct color at all. (Spoiler: it's just a shade of orange. Even the Merriam-Webster dictionary says so: "...between red and yellow in hue, of medium to low lightness, and of moderate to low saturation.") You can paste a snippet of brown into any photo editor and turn it orange simply by upping the brightness and contrast (the contrast also increases saturation). I just double checked by pasting the thumbnail of your Chocolate video into Word, right-clicking and selecting Format Picture / Picture (or Picture Corrections) and goosing brightness and contrast. The result looks just like a perfect artificially-colored orange peel.
"oranges are boring"
History Guy: "Hold this 10c orange juicer"
Perfect response. Well done.
@@jeffsilliman6821 His response was picked at the peak of perfection.
@@BenjaminCronce A little tart, yet sweet too.
I am very reminded of a wonderful episode in my life. Early in my grip truck career in NYC I was hired to travel with a Brazilian Film Crew hired to make a corporate documentary of Orange Juice, what happened to oranges grown in Brazil. I say I had lived to be hired in the morning and leave in the afternoon for travel through three states seeking out and filming huge tanks similar to the fuel tanks at airports. It is an amazing thing to see a container the size of a water tower full of orange juice. The Brazilians I worked with had been made sad because it had not been long since they too had been disappeared as had Argentinians. Americans like myself were young and vaguely aware of military dictatorships in South America, but mostly happy in our ignorance. Even today in the US disappeared isn't a prevalent tactic used to silence us. Trump fires people. Loss of your livelihood can lead to a lot less food. I believe one of the Producers was named Du Du. I was shocked in Connecticut at the racism exhibited at a roadside restaurant towards my Brazilian friends. I had grown up in North Carolina and idealized society above the Mason Dixon. There are huge vats of Orange Juice in our world. I wish I had seen the movie.
I could look at my notifications and see "The Forgotten History of Dryer Lint" and be excited..
Same here
@J Glass Never pass up The History Guy there is always something to be learned.
Oranges used to be a once-a-year, Christmas-stocking treat. My Dad lived in High Bridge, KY. He told me how a train car full of Blue Goose oranges derailed on the bridge itself, spilling crates of oranges 300' into the river. Most burst, but he "borrowed" the use of a nearby rowboat, and soon had enough crates of oranges that they were giving oranges away to just anyone... Then there was the time a carload of truck engines derailed nearby- those got bulldozed and buried, in a hurry. They couldn't use them in new trucks, and didn't want free new truck engines around competing with them...
Absolutely love the history videos on fruits, vegetables, and domestic animals! For a suggestion you should do a video on the history of Victorian era dog breeding. A lot of are dogs breeds come from that point in history and I think it would make for a fun video topic :)
I really enjoy these videos. Please keep it up 👍
Thank you, today i learned that the green oranges on the tree in my back yard for the last 6 months may actually be ripe ☺
I remember during one of my first winters in Greece seeing orange trees weighed down with fruit up in the mountain, even though it was bitterly cold and thee was plenty of snow on the ground. A real surprize for someone who had till then thought that they were a summer fruit.
As a Chinese, oranges are important to my culture. Our translation of the word orange is similar to our word for wealth. I eat oranges during Chinese New Year for good prosperity. Also, I don't throw away the peeled skin, I keep it t dry and use it as an ingredient for some soups and other stuff.
Thank you for sharing this with me ! Take care , stay safe and healthy with whatever you maybe doing next ! Doing well here in Kansas .
I always liked the fact that navel oranges had no seeds. You could just eat them without having to spit out seeds.
Well, then, I reckon that you might also enjoy watermelons without seeds? Darn seeds.
Yeah, but the flavor isn't great. Give me Valencia or a blood orange any day. I will buy bitter oranges before Navels, since they at least have flavor with which I can cook.
Yes, it is true that commercially grown navels usually have a poor flavor as they have been bred to withstand the battering that they take in shipment. However, there are varieties bred for the home gardener that are out of this world-sweet and bursting with outstanding flavor.
Except they have no flavor
@@erikjohnson9223 totally! Valencia all the way
I remember how stunned I was when I first heard "orange" pronounced as you do - it was on an Anita Bryant commercial for orange juice. In New England, we said "AH-range", closer to what you hear in the Snow Crop commercial. Now my pronunciation has been lost with TV using the other one, and though we still live in New England, my kids say "OR-ange" and laugh at me. "AH-range" - forgotten history that deserves to be remembered!
Greetings from Orange County, CA!
Most enjoyable video I've watched all week! Thank you!
As of the late 80s or early 90s the orange groves of Orange County, Florida have largely disappeared. 😢
Yes i live in Christmas and theres no more orange groves
The same thing happened in the Los Angeles basin. They moved them over the mountains to Bakersfield. Some old episodes of "Highway Patrol" with Broderick Crawford, show the San Fernando Valley still covered in orange groves. When I was a kid, we used to get 120+ oranges (120 or more oranges in a 40 lb box) for $2.50 from the Sunkist packing house and use them for juice. I always wondered why they sold frozen orange juice that was more expensive than fresh. lol
I lived in Deland, Fl. late 70's in the late fall the entire town was basted in orange blossom scent ...it was wonderful...now they are all gone and it's buildings and roads
That’s interesting. What are they growing now. Here in the Texas hill country they used to rave about Fredericksburg peaches. It’s still kind of a big deal. You used to see peach groves everywhere. But now, all those peach groves are now vineyards. I guess wine is more profitable than peaches.
@@dano336 In southern California they used to have all the lemon groves near the ocean since they were more sensitive to freezing than oranges. If a hard freeze comes when the lemon trees are in bloom, you can lose the whole crop. The warmer Pacific Ocean kept that area from freezing. Those giant lemon groves when they were in full bloom smelled so good. Unfortunately they're gone now too and the land is covered with multi-million dollar houses now...
I love these fruit history videos. Thank you for sharing! :)