Meyer lemon

Citron Meyer

What it is

Frank Meyer found it growing in a dooryard near Peking in 1908 and shipped it home to the USDA; it is a lemon crossed with a mandarin, which accounts for the orange cast and the missing sharpness. Most American trees were destroyed in the 1940s once they were found to carry tristeza virus, and the variety was reissued clean in 1975 as the Improved Meyer.

In the kitchen

Swapped one for one for lemon it leaves a dish flat — it carries roughly half the acid, so add a squeeze of ordinary lemon or increase the quantity. Its skin has almost no bitter pith: zest it hard, or slice the whole fruit into a roasting tin.

Goes with

Cream Olive oil Thyme White sugar Egg Butter Poppy seed Scallop

In season alongside

Menton lemon Seville orange Blood orange Clementine Kumquat Buddha's hand

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