Facts About Oranges:
29 Amazing Things About This Ordinary Fruit

1.) In Afghanistan, oranges are customarily used as a seasoning at the dinner table; oranges are squeezed over the food to help cut grease.

2.) In Jamaica, people clean their floors with an orange cut in half; mechanics there use oranges to clean away grease and oil.

3.) Spain has over 35,000,000 orange trees.

4.) In Switzerland, oranges are sometimes served smothered with sugar and whipped cream.

5.) Europeans sometimes eat oranges with knives and forks.

6.) English children make "orange-peel teeth;" they wedge a piece of the peeling over their gums on Halloween.

7.) It wasn’t until after the Second World War that commercial orange-juice concentrate became available in America.

8.) Oranges were once considered the fruit of the gods; they were referred to as the "golden apples" that Hercules stole.

9.) The taste and aroma of oranges differ by season, county, state, and country, and even in the position in which it grew on the tree.

10.) The outside color of an orange has no absolute correlation with the maturity of the fruit and juice inside.

11.) Oranges were used in cosmetics by ladies of the French court in the 17th-century.

12.) The navel orange is one of the oldest varieties of oranges.

13.) About 25 billion oranges are typically grown in the United States each year.

14.) Not all orange varieties mature in the same season. Valencia matures in the spring and summer; the Washington Navel doesn’t ripen until the fall or winter.

15.) Although Florida is the leading orange producer in the United States, they produce very few Navel Oranges, one of the most popular varieties.

16.) Varieties of the Temple Orange and the Murcott Honey Orange are not true oranges. They are natural hybrids: half orange, half tangerine.

17.) Many orange varieties float when placed in water; very sweet varieties, however, sink to the bottom.

18.) In the 19th-century orange blossoms were regularly shipped to Paris in salted barrels, because no French bride wanted to be married without wearing or holding them.

19.) After Francis I saved Marseilles from a Spanish siege, the ladies of Marseillaise pelted him with oranges as a token of their love and gratitude.

20.) Temple Oranges were native to the Orient and thought to be sacred.

21.) Some oranges turn orange when they are still unripe; others turn to green again as they ripen.

22.) An orange tree in Europe referred to as the "Constable," is said to be four hundred and eighty-eight years old.

23.) Lightning kills as many orange trees as any disease.

24.) 17th-century Frenchmen liked to pour orange juice over their roasted chestnuts.

25.) Oranges and orange blossoms have long been symbols of love.

26.) Many societies once believed that the worst thing that could happen to an orange tree was the touch of a woman, which — it was believed — would make the foliage wilt and drop.

27.) Some ancient civilizations used the juice and peel of oranges as antidotes for innumerable poisons.

28.) Oranges were so esteemed in Florence that paintings of the fruit cover the ceilings of the Medici’s Pitti Palace.

29.) To make oranges a more appealing orange color, oranges are sometimes gassed. Some oranges are also dyed in a vat, dried, then coated in Johnson’s Wax.