r/mildlyinfuriating • u/marcus_dobre_lover • 18h ago

I just wanted a hot dog Mom bought 150 lemons.

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She randomly comes back with a butt load of food items once in a while

Any lemon recipe suggestions

\she’s 44, for people asking her age\.

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u/Negative_Fruit_1800 16h ago

Believe it or not oranges were not the most common citrus in America when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. It was a special treat to get them at Christmas. The church would hand out a bag filled with oranges, nuts and hard candy the Sunday before Christmas after nativity ceremonies.

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u/Troutalope1 14h ago

Boxes of oranges from FL and Vidalia onions from GA were also Xmas gifts from family when I was growing up in the Midwest.

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u/Sunstorm84 14h ago

Merry Christmas!

I got you some onions.

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u/Willsagain2 10h ago

To wear on your belt. It's very fashionable.

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u/Sunstorm84 9h ago

The design is very human

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u/rsm6130 9h ago

My mom actually looked forward to Vidalia onions. They’re her favorite.

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u/Pikanyaa 8h ago

Those are tears of joy, right?

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u/ElcidBarrett 14h ago

When I was growing up in the 90s and 00s, my parents always put an orange in my stocking. I never quite got it, but it was apparently quite the treat when they were growing up.

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u/Negative_Fruit_1800 14h ago

We could only get fruit in season back then so getting an orange at Christmas was like the holy grail.

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u/SpaceGypsy27 14h ago

elite comment

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u/70ms 11h ago

That probably depends on where you live - in SoCal there are citrus trees everywhere. Parts of Los Angeles were once orange groves and Sunkist is still headquartered in Valencia. The original Sunkist building is viewable from the freeway in L.A. and it’s always been really cool. My mom’s house had a lemon, juice orange, and navel tree in our small backyard in the 80’s. :)

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u/ER_Support_Plant17 8h ago

Same for most of FL back in the 80’s, not sure about now with that citrus disease killing off so many groves

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u/70ms 5h ago

Apparently the citrus industry in Florida is over because of citrus greening disease. They got it first, and California took steps to try to keep it out, but it just delayed the inevitable and now it’s starting here. I’m worried for my little potted variegated Eureka lemon tree. :(

I read “The Sixth Extinction” a while back, and one of the ways we’ve accelerated it is with the spread of invasive species (citrus greening is spread by an invasive insect).

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u/thedreadedaw 13h ago

What part of America? I bought 10 lb of oranges to feed my kids and we'd pick them off the trees when we went to visit family in California. Plus they've been growing a kabillion oranges if Florida for ages. Didn't you ever see the movie Trading Places or hear Anita Bryant advertising them?

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u/Negative_Fruit_1800 13h ago

Appalachia, rural North Carolina. There was no way we were ever driving to Florida let alone California, the family car was lucky to make it to Church and the grocery store twice a week. I’m more fortunate now, I can buy all the oranges I want.

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u/thenaughtydj 8h ago

Plus one for the frozen concentrated orange juice 😂😂

Apparently Dan Ackroyd is working on a sequel, but that was 2024. Still no news about that one. Imo it should be called Trading 2 Places though.

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u/DigitaIBlack 15h ago

So what was the most common citrus

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u/FuckYouVerizon 15h ago

tomatoes of course.

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u/MechanicalTurkish 15h ago

I love potatoes

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u/Negative_Fruit_1800 14h ago

I said rutabagas

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u/Boring_Intern_6394 14h ago

Limes are native to the Americas. I would guess them?

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u/ER_Support_Plant17 8h ago

Really? Is that the reason Mexican mayonnaise is made with lime juice?

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u/applespicebetter 9h ago

When I was a kid in the 80s in Maine it was still a tradition to get an orange in your Christmas stocking every year!

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u/Dirt-Repulsive 9h ago

Child hood memories get a large orange every Christmas in stocking , no other times…

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u/clutzycook 8h ago

Yes! Mine too! Ours was a paper bag that was about 1/3 peanuts and had a red delicious (yuck) apple, an orange, and usually a Snickers bar or a Hershey bar with a few hard candies thrown in for good measure.

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u/Negative_Fruit_1800 7h ago

The red delicious was the worst. We got Brazil nuts, and walnuts which I thought were amazing.

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u/AnguavonUW 12h ago

They were but not in your area for whatever reason. Most metropolitan statistical areas (a civil engineering term for large cities)and the towns directly adjacent to them, where the bulk (90+%} of the country's population resides, had easy access to oranges. They were more expensive, relatively speaking, then vs now. So that might be part of the reason, too

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u/slleslie161 11h ago

It really depends which region you grew up in.

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u/Realistic-Leave9393 8h ago

I grew up around that same time. We barely had oranges in our house but I always thought it was because we couldn’t afford them. So looked forward to the last day of school before Christmas break because we got a bag with lots of goodies, one apple and one orange. Yum!

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u/CrotalusHorridus 6h ago

Did you grow up in Appalachia?

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u/Negative_Fruit_1800 2h ago

Yes, rural North Carolina. The world seemed a lot smaller then.

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u/emmapeel218 4h ago

My uncle grew up in pretty serious poverty and said that his fondest memory was the year he got an orange for Christmas. It was his only gift and the only orange he had that year--the only fruit that didn't come from whatever they could grow at their house.

This also makes me think of "The Sweet Smell of Christmas" book that has a scratch & sniff orange in the bear's stocking!