Spanish Sun on a fruit: the Valencian oranges
If you have ever tasted a Valencian orange you know it is like biting an explosion of sweetness and freshness. You can almost feel how the vitamins and minerals enter your body and go through it all, in a shiver of pleasure. What if it was a fresh orange, just picked from the tree that same day…
The Family Serra has been producing oranges for more than 4 generations and started to sell them online in 2002. At that time, they realised they could sell the oranges directly to the clients. The usual procedure is to sell the oranges to the fruit merchant. It makes that the oranges have to wait in cool storages and be treated for preservation. If you live far away, there may be no option. But the Serra’s Family decided to offer other option: you can order the fruit and they will send it directly to you, so the oranges mature on the tree and they are picked and sent to the customer in less than 24 hours.
In the video at the bottom you can learn more and discover the farm in Corbera. The video has subtitles in German and in English. Luis the son of the owner, the member of the family that came up with the idea of selling the oranges from Internet, answered some of our curiosities in this entertaining interview:
Folk Camp Spain: I have a Norwegian friend, every time I pick up an orange I remember him. He says that Spanish oranges are like the Spanish sun on a fruit. What do you think of my Norwegian friend’s idea?
Luis Famila Serra: A very apt slogan. Many people relate food to the memories of their travels. In Spain we have many typical dishes that can remain in a tourist’s memory, but if someone tastes an orange just picked from the tree, with all its juice and real flavour, he will surely keep that memory and idealise it. If he also does it on a sunny day, which is very likely in Spain, especially on the Levante coast, he will surely keep that memory by relating the orange and the sun. I love your friend’s phrase.
FCS: The truth is that I have similar anecdotes with the oranges from Spain in more countries. I work with traditional music artists and a Polish lady, from the region of Radom, a super small and isolated town, when I was at her house she told me that she didn’t know where Spain was and that all she knew about Spain was that she liked oranges a lot. What is it about Spanish oranges that makes them so appreciated?
LFS: Oranges require a combination of cold and heat to ripen properly. In Valencia these conditions are perfectly present, as we have very hot months in summer, but we also combine them with cold months in autumn and winter. Oranges also need cold in order to ripen properly and have the corresponding sugar and orange skin colour. I imagine that in tropical countries where oranges are also grown, those hot and cold months do not combine as well as in Spain. Moreover, to bring the oranges to Europe requires many days of travel, days spent in cold storage, having harvested the oranges still green. With the oranges from Spain, not so many days of travel are required, although most of them also go through cold storage. To really notice a big difference in taste you would have to see the alternative we give in our company to the traditional trade. We pick the oranges right on the day of shipment so that they arrive freshly picked without going through cold storage.
FCS: The oranges are usually eaten as a dessert or alone or even squeezed for juice (this seems to me a crime against the poor oranges…). But there are also salty dishes that include them. Can you tell me a dish that can be cooked with oranges? As my mother is from Extremadura, I share with you the recipe of the typical orange salad from the Hurdes. Although I think that the orange fits in any salad!
LFS: The truth is that we are not very experts in cooking and we usually eat the orange more as a dessert or between meals. The most typical dish that comes to my mind is “duck à l’orange”.
FCS: Why has Valencia established itself as the land of the orange? But they come from China!
LFS: Hahaha. They really came from China, although the first orange trees were used as a decorative tree in gardens of people with high economic power. Little by little, orange trees began to arrive for cultivation, being the first plantations in the area of the Ribera Alta of Valencia, a few kilometers from our fields. Those crops expanded and Valencia saw how practically all its fields were converted into orange plantations. In Valencia, especially in some areas near the coast, we have a perfect microclimate for growing oranges. As too much heat and not enough cold would make the oranges very pale and not ripen well, but excessive cold can cause frosts in winter and spoil crops. This perfect climate made Valencia an ideal area for growing oranges, which led to the rapid expansion of the crop.