Bloody good oranges!

Aylin Öney Tan

The photograph that dropped in my mobile phone was thrilling. Cut in half, it looked as if it was dripping with blood. Bewildered, it was not easy to keep my eyes off the picture. The picture taken at was taken at the Fruit Lojistica in Germany, one of the foremost in Europe. To be precise it was from a stand in Sicily promoting their famed blood oranges, and just as I was wondering, “How have they gone this far in advertising and how on earth did they find me!” Then I realized that the person who had sent the photos was my friend Birol Uluşan, one of the most knowledgeable people about fruits and vegetables in Türkiye. Another message came soon after: “Our blood oranges are no lesser, but we are lagging behind in packaging and promotion” and then added, “but I have also good news; the Mersin blood orange is about to receive geographical appellation.” Then he continued to send me pictures of products made from blood oranges, which took me back to the days when I met blood orange soft drinks and crimson ice cream in Italy in the 1980s. Sicily is the first region that comes to mind when you think of blood oranges. Sicilian blood oranges are valued not only as fruit but also as diverse products and are sold all over the world. As Birol Uluşan says, we have no shortage, we have a surplus, but it is time to add value to blood oranges.

I immediately dug into the history of oranges, in particular blood oranges. Oranges are a late arrival in the Mediterranean. When Portuguese explorers traveled around Africa and took over the trade of Asian countries, many exotic fruits were brought to the Mediterranean basin and the journey of the orange began. Among many other Asian origin foods, the orange became a truly Mediterranean fruit, almost iconic to many lands from Spain to Jerusalem. Not bitter like the previously known citrus, this sweet and juicy fruit was given names attributed to the Portuguese. Sicilians called it portogallo, Albanians portokale and Greeks portokallion. European countries, on the other hand, have given this fruit names indicative of the Chinese origin such as Apfelsinen in Germany, which means Chinese apple, and similarly Sinaasappel in the Netherlands. The orange found its best environment in Valenicia, Spain and Sicily in Italy. The blood orange was developed in Sicily in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, Sicilians are proud of the Sanguinello, named after the word "Sangue,” meaning "Blood,” the Moro, meaning Moorish, a name usually given to dark-colored products in reference to Arabs, and the Tarocco, named after the children's toy gyroscope with its red colored spinning top. Each one has its own properties. Some with their juiciness, some with their color, some with their aroma, and some with their acid-sugar balance, they all have unique taste profile and diverse usages.

The revolutonary spread of oranges in our country was realized with the efforts of the early Republican period. There were a series of agricultural research and experimental gardens to study the most suitable fruits for each region. The foremost initiatives were in the Mediterranean region in southern Türkiye, especially within the body of the Citrus Station established in 1936. In the test gardens of what is today BATEM - Western Mediterranean Agricultural Research Institute - many citrus species, especially orange species, have been developed. For example, grapefruit was cultivated in Antalya in those years and named Altıntop, literally the golden ball, but the name did not catch on and in time the name “greyfurt” was adopted from the English grapefruit. The Alata Technical Horticulture School, established in Çukurova in 1944, pioneered the establishment of citrus groves in its own region, covering an area of the provinces Mersin, Tarsus and Adana. Today, every type of citrus fruit is grown in the orchards stretching from Finike and Fethiye to Mersin and Adana. The blood oranges grown in and around Mersin are most closely related to the Moro variety from Sicily, which has an almost purplish red flesh and a reddish tinted skin, with its delicious juice having a deep crimson color. Unfortunately, many of the Sanguinello blood orange trees in Finike were uprooted in the past because they did not bring in money. People preferred other varieties to eat, rather than caring about its juice. However, nowadays blood oranges have a serious market potential. According to the latest analysis, blood orange juice contains three times more vitamin C than normal orange juice. The good news is that Mersin Blood Orange will soon be registered as a Geographical Indication, a much-deserved recognition to those bloody good oranges. Now, there is a serious competitor to the Sicilian bloody beauties.