“Let food be
thy medicine and medicine be thy food” - Hippocrates
lemon (Citrus limon)
The lemon
is a sour tasting fruit from a sub tropical citrus tree.
It cannot
easily be successfully grown in the UK for culinary purposes, but it is
sometimes grown indoors or in warm areas mainly for its ornamental or
novelty value. However, Bob Duncan seems to have managed it in Canada so
check out his video clip.
Lemons are
used extensively in many recipes throughout the world. Two things you
should never run out of in your kitchen are lemons and garlic.
Consider
using limes, or a mixture of limes and lemons instead of just lemons.
For many recipes limes make for a better tasting result.
Lemon
juice is used extensively in raw food recipes, for its zingy taste. To
make a recipe really tasty use all the five main taste senses that are
on the tongue. These are sweet, sour, spicy, bitter and salty. Add some
lemon juice to provide the sour component.
A glass of
water with a few drops of fresh lemon juice makes for a good first thing
in the morning drink. It's both re-hydrating and cleansing. If this is
the only tip you get from the entire website, this will benefit you!
Lemon
juice also slows down the oxidation process, for example it helps stop
apple pieces turning brown too quickly.
When you
are dehydrating fruits like apples or bananas to make fruit snacks, a
neat tip is to spray them with lemon water solution to make them tasty
and stop them going brown. See the "Natural Fruit Chips" video clip.
Commercially available lemons may have been sprayed with pesticides, and
then chemically waxed to preserve them during transportation. It is
particularly important to wash them well if the skin is going to be
used. Generally it is probably better to use organic lemons.
Organic
lemons would be a better bet if the skin is going to be used and
generally they taste better, but they don't have such a long shelf life
and go mouldy quicker.
Lemon zest
is obtained from the outer outer skin of the lemon by finely grating it.
You can get very fine graters which do a good job of this. Lemon zest is
used in many raw food recipes.
Citrus
fruits were imported from all over the world into the markets in London.
Some of the history of London is captured in the nursery rhyme "Oranges
and Lemons". See the video clip.
Links
"...lemons
and limes contain unique flavonoid compounds that have antioxidant and
anti-cancer properties."
