What in the Dickens is Calamondinade?

by Larry Winebrenner Writer When I wrote The Case of the Locked Drawer I knew readers would either wonder whether or assume that calamondinade was totally fictitious.

Not so. The first calamondin I ever tasted grew by the front door of my friend Paul Fink. [Yes, Fink, his real name that gave him no end of trouble.] His wife, Ruth, answered my question about what it was by saying, "It's a tiny sweet orange. Don't try to peel it. The skin's good to eat, too. Just pop it in your mouth and chew it up."

Now, the calamondin juice is very sour, more acid that the sourest lime or sour orange. As one of Etta's friends in the locked drawer mystery tells her, it is from the far east, indigenous to the Philippines and China and did not make it to the U,S.A. until about 1900.

Fortunately for me, the rind is quite sweet. Munching down on the whole fruit, about the size of a jawbreaker, but not nearly so hard, gives a rather pleasant sweet/sour taste. Just to show Ruth, I chewed it up, swallowed it and grabbed another off the tree.

The juice of the fruit makes a delicious citric drink. Not only can pies, cakes, and cookies be made from that fruit, but also a delicious marmalade.

Here’s the recipe used by Randy and Etta Derringer in The Case of the Locked Drawer to make calamondinade:

    2 cups of caladondin Juice
    1 quart water
    ½ pound sugar

Boil the water,
dissolve the sugar,
cool the solution
add the juice
refrigerate
serve in frostedugs

Note: The Derringers feel ice cubes dilute the goodness of the drink. Ceal suggested they make ice cubes from the drink and serve the drink over calamondinade ice cubes. But you just can’t teach old dogs new tricks. They insist on frosted mugs.

And, by the way, a quart would disappear too quickly, especially when serving it to guests. They concoct it a gallon at a time.

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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