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Community Corner

The Vampire Orange

Suck on this vampire-sounding fruit for a unique flavor and health benefits. Or try it out in a farmers market-inspired salad.

There are plenty of red-juice fruits out there—, , raspberries, cherries and , among others. But one fruit you might not expect to be filled with crimson liquid is the popular citrus, the . Dan Lammers sells an orange that is anything but.

The poorly named blood orange is originally from Spain. Its striking color is often a surprise to people. One woman at the market even thought it was an orange gone bad before she learned that it was, indeed, a ripe, sweetly sour fruit. Lammers, a seller of various and , advertises his vampire fruit under the moniker “raspberry oranges,” to make it more appealing.

“The red pigment is famous in red raspberries,” Lammers said. “It’s actually a very potent antioxidant called anthocyanin.”

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Anthocyanins are responsible for the red and purple pigments in many fruits and flowers. Their antioxidant properties are thought to get rid of those pesky free-radicals as well as impede the aging process.

Lammers’ blood oranges are small, about the size of a tangerine. They are sweet and sour, with a hint of raspberry flavor and plenty of juice. Their colors range from almost all orange, to orange with big splotches of magenta.

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“The more red on the outside, the more red flesh on the inside,” said Lammer’s wife, Enedina.

Don’t let the off-putting name of this juicy fruit scare you. Try a sample at Tuesday’s farmers market and pick some up for a fun twist on your everyday, normal citrus. I suggest trying them out in this Coronado farmers market-inspired spring salad to really enjoy the raspberry notes found in this extraordinary fruit.

Farmers Market Arugula and Blood Orange Salad

  • 2 cups fresh arugula from
  • ½-1 of Mary Hillebrecht’s fuerte , sliced
  • 3 of Lammers’ blood oranges, segmented
  • 1 handful of roasted almonds, roughly chopped
  • 1/4 cup ’s Goat White Cheddar cheese, crumbled or diced
  • 1 tbsp. your choice of mixed herbs from , chopped (try basil, lavender and lemon verbena)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • EVOO, from
  • Raspberry balsamic, from Coronado Taste of Oils

Toss It All Together

  1. Toss all dry ingredients (everything but the EVOO and balsamic) together in a chilled bowl. Drizzle a thin line of EVOO across the bowl, back and forth once, in a zigzag pattern. Toss again.
  2. Drizzle a thin line of the raspberry balsamic across the bowl, just once, in a zigzag pattern. Toss again.
  3. Taste a leaf of arugula and adjust the dressing to your taste, adding more EVOO or balsamic as necessary.

Make It Your Own

  • Use some vanilla honey almonds instead of roasted.
  • Try it out with Spring Hill’s goat feta, when they have it available.
  • Mix the arugula with other greens, such as spinach or romaine.
  • Add some sliced strawberries.
  • Use Coronado Taste of Oil’s lavender or peach balsamic.
  • Add some segmented pommelo or grapefruit.

Did You Know?

Lammers told me a legend about how the blood orange got its name. In Sicily, there was a cemetery and an orange tree in that cemetery started producing red oranges.

“The assumption was that the tree derived blood from the dead people in the cemetery,” Lammers said. “It’s an interesting legend!”

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