Supreme D'Orange

To supreme an orange is to experience the fruit in its totality. The fruit is a beautiful, fragrant and uniquely taste-full creation.

Pick up an orange and cup it in your palm. Wrap your fingers around it. It should be firm with a very little give. It should not have blemishes and should be darker orange. The outside should be clean and waxy smooth as you run your fingers over the pores. Pick an orange that will have a thin to medium thickness of skin.

As a child I was always handed a whole orange. Peeling the hard round fruit hurt my hand and stung my bitten finger nails. Sometimes I succeeded in removing the outside but it would be covered in pith that I had to pick off, bit by bit, endlessly. The tasteless roughage spoiled the experience. It I got a section free and intact there was a membrane to chew and seeds to spit out. The sweet clear flavor and delicious pockets of juice were mingled with this annoying material.

The return was not worth the work in my opinion. I gave up on oranges.

To supreme an orange is a soothing meditative study in patience. It is the process of removing all but the inside of that section you've been eating all your life. No more tinge of disappointment because you've always had to chew past the pesky membranes. Now it can be only those little teardrops of juice exploding like sunbursts in your mouth.

You are holding the orange on a cutting board now and a good sharp knife in the other hand. Cut the top and bottoms off so you can see the flesh and sections. The key is not to be afraid to cut into the orange sections as you peel. Slice downward along the sections removing skin, pith and membrane all around. You'll notice you aren't really removing much of the actual orange, especially as you get more experienced. This does take practice.

Now you have a naked orange and juice dripping off your hand. You should hold it above a bowl that catches the juice as you peel. With another, perhaps smaller, sharp serrated knife, you hold the orange and cut surgically close along a membrane as you would filet a fish. Proceed on each side of each section, removing the slice of flesh as you go and dropping it into the bowl. In the end you will be holding only the core and the membranes. Give them a parting squeeze to get all the juices.

At this point I often just gobble up the orange and delight in the purity of it all. You may want to put it in a salad or something. Make sure you savor the delicacy thoroughly though!