Orange: Squeeze your orange and have it too...

My very first memory of the orange was the hand-squeezed orange juice that my mom would make for me esp. when I was sick to get all the vitamin C. I liked to peel the skin of the orange half-moons, scoop out the seeds and savor the delicate core. Yeah, I composted all the fiber...

A decade later...
Orange became synonymous to Orange Cola - my favorite beverage in my teens when a local Indian company introduced an orange flavored beverage called 'Gold Spot'. Of course it had nothing to do with real oranges which I admittedly understand a decade later.


Two Decades later...
When I came to the US, orange juice became the usual suspect at my breakfast table usually sporting a Tropicana or Sunny D label. Although I became used to the taste - I often missed the hand-squeezed variety.
It felt like a lot of effort to self-squeeze. I would sometimes go to Jamba Juice and ask for freshly-squeezed explicitly explaining the meaning of "freshly-squeezed". (Thank you Jamba Juice to be patient with me)

So when I traveled to Europe, I was elated to see a machine that would squeeze the oranges with the press of a button. I spotted this first at the Paris airport cafe when I requested a bottle of orange juice. However, I was overjoyed to experience this myself in Zurich at the local grocery chain called co-op. In fact I would go there just to push the tab to fill up my own fresh-squeezed orange juice. My husband thought I was crazy until he drank the first cup. I would select the size of the bottle that I wanted to fill and then push the tab with the bottle placed carefully under the tap. The pre-loaded oranges would get halved and fall from the rotating assembly line inside the machine. Each half would then get squeezed and the remaining shell would get collected in another container at the foot of the machine. (See attached video)
I filled one-liter in less than 30 seconds!! My mom would complain that she had to squeeze the oranges for everyone else - This way mom, you could squeeze your oranges and have it too!

One of the nicest things for not having your husband around is that I get to explore things that are on my list like the local grocery stores. This video is from a local 7-11 kind of store in Brussels where I spotted this today and I couldn't wait to share it with you...

Do you have a story to tell about oranges or fruit-juices? Would love to hear about your experiences?

 

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