Na So Yu De It Orinch [This is how you eat an orange]

Post by Lara, Demonstration by Kevin

10 January 2012

We arrived in Sierra Leone at the very tail end of mango season (early June). After that, rainy season came into full swing, during which we were able to buy freshly picked pineapples, “plums,” and bananas, which seem to be available sporadically throughout the year. Toward the end of rainy season guavas and papayas ripened and became available. November brought the dry season, and with it the first oranges and grapefruits.  Orange season continues for a while into the dries, hopefully bringing us all the way to mango season again.  Because we showed up here at the polar opposite of orange season, we didn’t eat an orange for the first several months we were here, and we didn’t see anyone else eat them either.  We knew to be on the lookout, though, because a few of the resource volunteers who helped with training informed us that Sierra Leoneans do not eat oranges the way Americans do.

It’s an interesting realization, showing up in a country you’ve never been to before, believing wholeheartedly that what you have in common with the people here as fellow human beings is enough to bridge any cultural gap that exists between you, only to find that this entire nation eats oranges the wrong way. Or you’ve eaten them the wrong way your whole life, which is an even more unsettling thought.

The fact is, we never realized we were eating oranges the wrong way. We grew up with two distinct acceptable methods for eating oranges: the first, peeling it with your hands or a knife if the peel is stubborn, and breaking the segments apart, eating them one by one; the second, each orange cut in quarters and served piled high in a cooler at halftime of a middle school soccer game (bonus points for making a “mouth guard” out of the peel).  The Sierra Leonean technique is not either of the above.  It’s a lot more like turning the orange into a juice box. Though we were skeptical at first, I have to admit we’ve since come to realize that this is in fact a pretty great way to eat an orange.  We may never go back, at least not until we have children old enough to make orange mouth guards at soccer games.  Allow Kevin to demonstrate:

 First, cut the outer peel off with a knife- you’re basically cutting the bitter colored part of the skin off and leaving the tasteless pith.  Try to leave as much peel intact as you can, because if it’s too thin it’ll break when you’re trying to squeeze the juice out of it later.

Next, cut off the top. 

Now start to squeeze the orange while drinking the juice out of the opening you’ve cut. It helps to squeeze a section at a time.  As seeds come out, spit them as far as you can—just like watermelon seeds.

Keep squeezing the juice out of the orange and drinking it until there’s none left to squeeze out.

If you’re really dedicated, you can now turn the orange peel inside out and eat the rest of the orange.

Finally, give the inside-out orange peel to your tiny neighbor and tell him it’s a hat.

And that, my friends, is how you eat an orange.